River Thames 15 sept 08

This weeks session was an evening one, both Dad and I were going to fish into dark

With the river still up, coloured, and pushing through, I decided to stick with my heavier set up as used last week.

I let Dad choose which swim he wanted first, as he still has to catch a barbel!!! He chose upstream of a large overhanging bush, so I settled in the swim below. The bush created a large slack area behind it, which I thought would be an ideal place to locate a river carp or barbel.

Rigs were exactly the same as last week, with 12lb hook lengths, and size 8 owner hooks, 3 oz leads held bottom with no problem at all in the slack margins about a rod length out. In fact, I had my lines slack from the rod tip to the 1 oz backlead. I was using the backlead so that I could keep the angle of line down, and keep the line behind the lead pinned to the bottom. This is another one of my thoughts for this year, and although in the coloured water it probably wouldn't make much difference i'm sure it will when the river clears up.

I checked the hook points while baiting up, as I had left the hooklengths attatched from last weeks session, they were fine, so on went 2 x 15 mm Spicy fresh prawn boilies on one rod, and 3 on the other.

One rod went straight out in front of me on the edge of the flow, followed by a handful of free samples slightly upstream. The second rod was positioned downstream about 20yrds, again followed by a handful of free samples.

As the sun went down, as is so usual on the Thames, the water came alive with fish surfacing all over. even out in the main flow! Most of them were behind the bush under my rod tips, probably feeding on the surface scum that had gathered. Every now and again there was a bigger swirl, which at first I thought were bigger fish feeding on the surface, but after a while I started to think that they were probably perch feeding on the smaller fish as there were some really big swirls and splashes.

After a while of this I decided to reel in the barbel rods and get the lure rod out of the car and see if I could catch one, if indeed they were perch.

whilst reeling in the downstream rod, it was now that I realised I had cast over a snag and then with the back lead pulled the line down into it!! so with not a lot of pull at all I tried to free the snagged rig and the line frayed above the rig, losing the whole lot in the process!! That will teach me, lesson learned.

The second rod also snagged slightly before coming free and bring with it a load of weed and cabbage roots.

So after around 20 minutes of casting small mepps spinners around the swim to no avail, I decided to put the barbel rods back out.

I re baited the rod which was still set up and put this straight out on the edge of the flow, followed by a handful of freebies. I then re rigged up the second rod, this time using a size 6 owner curved hook. This rod was placed upstream, away from the snag, again another handful of free bait went out over the rig.

A little while later I had a knock on the rod tip on the right hand rod, followed a minute or so later by another. Then nothing, thinking about what to do, do I reel in and rebait or leave it and wait??

About ten minutes later I decided to move the left hand rod closer in, after having recast it out into the main flow with 5 oz of lead. As I went to pick up the rod, the right hand rod shot off, grabbing it and striking I felt a weight the slack! Damn I had missed it, upon checking the rig I could clearly see why. When I had snagged the rig earlier, I had not checked the hook point, and it was as blunt as anything. In fact, whilst testing the hook, it would not even break the skin on my finger with alot of pressure. Lesson learned again!!! I cant believe that I had been so stupid to not check and replace the hook!! Still at least I know I will NEVER do it again.

In the mean time Dad had missed a whacking bite on garlic flavoured meat.

Nothing else happened during the session. Whilst I am enjoying getting out and fishing, I wish the flow would calm down to normal conditions so I can get fishing properly without needing 6 oz to hold bottom anywhere other than the margins!!

I have been given a tip about Rivermead Island in sunbury in my bid for a double figure barbel, however on my first drive past there were 4 bivvies pitched up along there, so maybe a little too busy for me. I might still give it a go though, one morning on an early session.

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River Thames 8th sept 08

Today was going to be a session with a difference, not only was I fishing a flooded river for the first time ever,
I was also fishing a stretch I have not barbel fished before.

I suppose starting on a new stretch of river is always going to be daunting, especially when its carrying extra water from all the recent rain, but its something I felt I needed to do. Alot of the spots I normally fish are very very popular, most of the time its hard enough to get a swim, day sessions, night sessions, weekend sessions, they are normally all full. Which means the fish are very much pressurised. This is confirmed by the fact that my catches have never really set the angling world alight!!!

Since starting my barbel campaign on the Thames 4 years ago, I have only caught a handful of them, with the biggest going 9.06.
Whilst this is a big fish for the river, I was still quite disappointed with my results, especially for the effort put in.
I put these results down to, not that there were no fish in my swim, as im sure there were fish present. But down to the fact that they are constantly pressured.

This in turn made me think about various aspects of my fishing -
Baits - was I using the best bait I could? was anyone else using the same bait as me?
Rigs - my standard rigs were 12lb mainling, 12lb hooklength, so was this a factor in not catching? I wasnt using backleads, was this an issue too?
Swim - too crowded? too much bait going into the swims? or possible no barbel present, as im sure they are not present in every swim!!!

Since considering the above aspects, I have paid alot more attention to my rigs, baits and where I fish this year.
I loaded my reels with 10lb mainline, instead of 12lb, I started making 8-10lb hooklengths, instead of 12-15lb. I have made aload of leadcore leaders for fishing close in so that I can pin the line down and not spook the fish.
I started thinking more about bait, instead of just using pellets and source boilies. I still use them but I have opened up and got a little more variety, fresh spicy prawn, meaty marine, tiger nut. As well as different pellets, not just halibuts.
Swim-wise I have been thinking about fishing different areas, areas that see minimal bankside disturbance. Areas that take alot of walking to. Google earth has been invaluable for searching out new water.
I have found many new spots to fish that, although they have probably been fished in past, have probably not seen anywhere near the amount of anglers that the more popular "park behind your swim" areas get.
I also wanted to get away from the deciding how and where to fish at home scenario, that I did so much. I think that to a certain degree, you need to plan for a session, but I think that its easy to over plan. Sometimes I was almost virtual fishing from home, that was the extent to which I was planning for my sessions.
So my new plan is to pick an area to fish and decide where and how to fish when I get there.

So my target for this season is to catch the same amount of barbel that I have caught in the past 4 years!! Not that hard in itself giving the amount of new water I have to go at, and of course, working shifts I can get to fish the more popular areas during the week when there are less anglers around.


So to the session itself -

It was a pretty lazy morning, and we decided to have lunch and sort Jake before leaving which mean't that we got to the river around 13:30ish
Wearrived at the chosen area, an area that I wanted to fish for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in the times that I have lure fished along here in the past I have not seen one single angler along the stretch. And secondly as the river was pushing through quite a bit, I thought that the large fallen tree would give some santuary to the fish from the flow, as it created a large slack area behind it.

I started by setting up 2 identical rigs, free running leads, on 12lb line (I was going to downgrade to 10lb, however with extra lead needed for the flow I decided to use the heavier tips and line) 12lb flouro ESP ghost hooklengths around 12inchs long to size 8 owner hooks. Hookbaits were glugged 20mm source boilies and glugged 21mm halibut pellets.

Now, reading about what my plan of action had been for this year, and then reading about how I set up for todays session might seem a bit hypocritical, I have just spent 5 minutes going on about how Im going to change my approach this year, and here I am using exactly the same rigs as last year.

But on the day, I felt heavier line would not make a difference due to the extra colour in the water. This was also the case with the baits, as I didnt introduce any free offerings due to the strength of the flow, I chose double 20mm boilies and double 21mm halibuts. Seeing as these were the only baits in the water I wanted the barbel to find them.

The heavier line was also needed as I placed a bait half way accross the river in the main flow, this required 6oz of lead to hold bottom. The other rig was placed upstream of my position right in front of the fallen tree, as close as I could get it.
There was a fair amount of colour in the river and it was probably 1ft up, however this gradually dropped through the session, by around 4 inches, judging by the water level on the tree to my left.

The session ended with a blank, I wasnt too concerned about this, after all its a new area, and the fish will take some finding.
I am going to target the area again, because it doesnt seem to get fished much, I introduced some pellets into the swim before I left, so provided the river doesnt rise again, im hoping the fish might get on the bait.

One strange thing that happened during the session, claire was casting a mepps spinner around and as I had moved the rod from the tree to the edge of the mainflow, she had a little area of slack water to cast around in. 3 or 4 casts later and she had managed to hook the half a tree that was sitting in the edge of our swim. After a bit of pulling the branch started moving, with that a fish (light coloured, carp or chub possibly??) came up tot he surface with it, it then shot off along the surface. It was a bizzarre scene and I have never seen a fish swim off like that before, it reminded me of spawning carp skimming accross the surface!!

So for next time -
Well Im not going to plan much about it, I have bait ready, I just need to hope the rain stays away and I can scale down and try my new tactics. Who knows I might actually catch some fish this year!!!