First Barbel this season

[BoldBear]

I have only managed one failed session after Barbel since the glorious 16th because of being away on holiday and other commitments. Now with the world cup being shown on the TV I decided that it would be an excellent opportunity to have an evening on the local stream while a lot of anglers would be at home watching the football; well that was my theory.

I hadn’t seen the stream so low being a little less than 1 to 2ft in most places with the very occasional deeper channel of approx 3ft max and with the current reduced and the sun beating down it seemed that it was going be a hard evening finding any Barbel willing to feed in earnest; but I reasoned that they must still need to feed albeit with a little less gusto so all was not completely lost.

As I peered into one shallow swim there were at least two Barbel swimming around near the surface close to the edge but they totally ignored the small pellets that I scattered near them from behind some bank side vegetation; so after I catapulted a few more pellets into the swim I carried on down to a slightly deeper glide which had a little more current and where I could trot a small stick along the edge of a gulley with my centrepin.

I started trotting small lively redworms under a small avon/stick float just on the edge of a small gulley which went under the shade of an overhanging tree and caught several small Chub of around 8 to 12oz plus a few small Perch and the odd Gudgeon with the occasional suicidal Minnow and apart from two Chub of around 1½lbs nothing sizeable took my bait; even the Roach and Dace failed to show; but the sun would be getting lower in the sky soon and so I decided to put a slightly larger hook on and change over to a slither of spicey luncheon meat and fire out a couple of pouches of small pellets and wait for the inevitable Barbel to show themselves.

At around 7pm I had my first Barbel which at only around 1½lb put up a valiant fight worthy of a fish twice it’s size; closely followed by another only slightly larger.

It was an hour later as the sun sank further towards the horizon that I started to catch Barbel of a more decent size and caught five other Barbel all of between 4.5lb to 7lb; not huge as far as the Barbel can go in this stream but immensely satisfying especially on the pin.





At around 9:45pm when I could no longer see my float properly I packed away my gear and drove home with that common feeling of contentment that most Barbel anglers seem to experience after a pleasant evenings Barbeling but at the same time with the trepidation that this small stream may soon start to disappear completely if we get many more of these long dry summers and I muttered a small prayer to Isaac who would surely turn in his grave if he knew that his favourite river lea was slowly turning into a trickle of its former self.

Tight lines

Keith (BoldBear)

[blackwater]

Well done Keith, nice report and nice barbel too. A nice way to get your first few of the season.

Justin

[Maddison_Twatter]

Good read and nice pics, well done.

[pingu]

cracking sesion there keith

dave

[scottish_and_mental]

Much better than the world cup Keith ! unless you happen to be Spanish !
lovely pics and a great way to get a new species

[barbel master]

well done, really nice barbel , caught on the best method aswell.

"as I peered into one shallow swim there were at least two Barbel swimming around near the surface close to the edge" guess you've got the the three most important things in fishing location,location,location

[BoldBear]

I am taking my son out on the stream this evening for his first real Barbel trip; if the rain keeps away.
He caught a couple of small Barbel of around 1 or 2 pounds several years ago but he has never experienced any larger Barbel so I am keeping my fingers crossed for him.
I suppose I had better put him in the best swim to make sure that he stands a good chance of hooking one or two.

[barbel master]

"as I peered into one shallow swim there were at least two Barbel swimming around near the surface close to the edge" you can tell its not the Trent near Gainsborough, or it would be " as i peered through the chavs into the Trent swim there were a couple of condoms and some empty beer cans close to the edge" lol

[BoldBear]

Shame, I've always wanted to fish the Trent, used to be such a good river I always thought.

[barbel master]

yeh its a really good river to fish, just not very nice swims in gainsborough though.