Finally, I found some nice fish
Having had 2 blank sessions on peg 11 yesterday, I arrived to find peg 14 free. I decided to give it a go after the recent catches from that peg.
My trench spade had arrived so used it to clear a decent space for my chair. It was still precarious on that peg as you are about 5 feet above the water and sit on a small plateau that looks undercut beneath it. I had to be very careful when reaching to put out the keepnet.
I started with 2 rods, one near the downstream bush that is known to hold Chub and one in front of me just this side of the main flow. This was still quite strong after the high levels of the past few days. I fished lobworm and bomb on both after putting in several bait droppers of hemp, caster, micro halibut pellets and 2mm cubes of luncheon meat.
I had my first bite within about 15 mins on the rod out in front of me. This resulted in a nice sized Perch. After another hour or so I was getting a few tentative pecks at my bait so I twitched it to evoke a bite and finally got a Chub near the downstream bush. It was not big but was so enjoyable as it was my first from the River Ure.
After another hour or so I had no bites so decided to put on a blockend feeder that had enlarged holes to let the loosefeed mix escape. I fished this near the bush with a lobworm but got no interest. I then decided to try 5 casters on my size 8 hook. This hadn’t been in too long when I had a bite (quite tentative) and struck into a hard fighting Barbel that took me straight into the bush despite me trying lots of sidestrain to keep it out. Once it got snagged I released the pressure for a few seconds and the fish left the bush and headed for mid river. Several minutes later I got it to the surface and realised it was a decent size. Netting the fish was a challenge - my 2.5m landing net handle only just reached. Another note to self; buy a longer handle.
Having banked the fish I was so pleased. I immediately weighed it at 8lb 10oz. Unfortunately I hadn’t bothered to setup my camera so had to make do with the following photo taken with my phone. I wanted to revive and return it asap (too big for keepnet) so no time to waste setting up the camera. Another note to self; always set up camera before fishing!
I immediately setup my camera just in case there were more Barbel around. I fished for another hour or so and managed one more small Chub. This had been a thoroughly enjoyable evening after the 3 previous blank sessions. I took the following of the fish that I had kept in my keepnet.
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