Near normal level
The river level was only a foot or so above its usual level so I decided on the Cricket Field, peg 6. My plan was to fish the usual downstream bush with my Chub rod, alternating between Cheese paste, Lobworm and Luncheon meat and to fish my Barbel rod out in the main flow but, and this is a first for me, using a PVA mesh bag loaded with broken Halibut pellets, small cubes of Luncheon meat and my mix of hemp, micro halibut pellets, micro meat and micro cheese cubes. I would hook this dissolving bag ensuring that the loose offerings were close to my hair-rigged Halibut pellet.
Quick fish
I started fishing about 4:50pm and got taps on my Cheese paste straight away. I missed the first but at about 5:05pm I hooked a fish and I initially thought I had hooked a large Chub. However it turned out to be a slender Pike of about 30” in length. I had hooked it on the outside of its lower jaw and managed to land it and unhook it successfully. Unfortuntaly there were signs of abrasion within a couple of inches of the hook so I changed the hook length.
By 6:30 I hadn’t got any more positive bites near the downstream bush. Neither had I any bites in mid river. I was contemplating fishing the Barbel rod near the bush from 7pm on a large chunk of meat for the last hour or two just in case the usual twilight Barbel turned up.
Hold it
Around 6:40 I saw a bump on the Barbel rod in mid river. A few minutes later this developed into a proper bite and I hooked into a Barbel. This was my first mid river fish. As with all Barbel, it gave a great account of itself before I netted this perky 6lb fish. This is the smallest that I have had from the Ure: -
When photographing the fish I noticed another hook in its upper jaw. This was a smaller hook with thinner line so had probably snapped someone that was not after Barbel. I removed this hook.
Bouyed by mid river success I decided to leave the Barbel rod out there and continue with the Chub rod near the bush. Unfortunately the rest of the evening passed without incident but it was nice to be back amongst the Barbel again and with a new location (mid river) and a new technique (PVA mesh bags).
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