I am not going to the Severn till August (or how I have the will power of a maggot).

[barbelblanker]

The plan this season is simple.

June and July. Himley hall catch crucian and tench.

July . Intensively fish the stour.

August onwards , hit the Teme and the Severn for Barbel and Chub.

What happens ?

Well first my beloved Toyota has been playing silly beggars all winter and finally went boobs over colon and refused to start. A few hundred quid of autoelectricians bills later and I finally had to admit defeat , and buy another Toyota avensis. So june was a bit of a non-starter.

Weekend before the one just gone we went to Brean , place called Northran Farm. Fantastic camp site with lakes (included in the camp fee). Caught a few bream the first day on maggot to a float. Second day caught a carp about 8 lb and a few small rudd. Will be back even though our friends suffered a burglary WHILE THEY SLEPT. Scary. Heard a shout of "Pete I need your help" about 2 am. Never been dressed and out so quick in my life. Unfortunately the scum were long gone. Would highly recommend this site though. It is a really friendly place with super staff. We even had a personal visit from a lovely lady (who it turns out is the owner and apparently owns most of Brean by the sound of things) to apologise for our friends being done over and asking if there was anything she could do. How many places do you know where the OWNER turns up never mind security or management. Even had a shop on site with normal prices too.

So there's me in work today and my darling wife mentions the fact that she's going to be home (she works for the Not Home Soon, so I was expecting her home at nine) to take our Moll' to her guitar practice (she's got a pink electric guitat, class!!) as she's got to play in a gig on Saturday at Himley (Aha! I see a possible multi task coming :) ). OH! I can have the car then ? So she promises to be back at seven. So she turns up quarter past.

Having been to the tackle shop on the weekend I've got more halibut pellets in different sizes than split shop in my float gear .

So the plan goes out the window and I'm off down the Severn then.Arrive at 20:15, fishing by 20:30 bit rushed for my liking though. It's half an hour away and , although I'd rather live in Cardiff or on the Isle of Wight , I have to admit I still feel spoilt with the Teme and Severn so close.

Only problem is where? Hampton Loade is closest but is slow moving and I think the fish will be below the ferry if wany anywhere and that's another 20 minutes drive (I can swim but not that well).

So I decide on BAA Eardiston Brook section as that's shallow and got some oxygen going through it.

To cut a medium size story down, drum roll, here it comes, you aren't going to believe this, I caught about 10 barbel.

No I didn't, it's me , I bl@@dy well blanked again.

Talk about watching an episode of how not to do it.

First mistake was putting loads of different size pellets in a bait box, then , oh hold on to your hats this is amazing, I got my catapult and found a swift way of sorting your pellets by size. It's SO easy, when you fire them in the "tight group" you were aiming for, the little ones go a little way, the next biggest ones go a bit further and so on. DOH! DOH! DOH!

Too late I put them in a pva mesh and cast this and the hookbait to a cleaner spot and then watch the motionless tip (other than the odd bit of weed) for the next half an hour or so.

Then I repeat the mistake I made last year by baiting BEFORE I find out what is in front of me and promptly find the snag from hell. Swim oblitorated by me being daft.

After an hour and with failing light I moved swim to the corner where the flow comes in and it's really shallow.

Wade out about 10 feet and dump a load of pellets in the river plus a couple of balls of halibut and brown crumb to see if it'll draw some fish up the river.

It didn't.

So it's more lessons learnt and some food for thought.

So all that rubbish about not fishing for barbel till August went out the window and yet again I am in "Can't wait for another crack" mode.

and I wouldn't swap it for a day in work, ever :)

[bampah]

Lovely report; had me smiling all the way through.