I had driven out to the spot I planned to fish earlier in the day and deposited around 3/4's of a bag of 18mm DBMM boilies, and half a kilo of 8mm high oil trout pellets into a margin spot.
The swim has produced barbel for me in the past, my biggest thames fish in fact of 9.06.
I prebaited the swim, as I thought with the rain forcast all day I was hoping no one would be out, something I found to be true as I only found one other person fishing all day on my drive round to several different spots.
I arrived at my swim at just after 19:00 and proceeded to set up one rod with a very simple rig, korda lead clip, 2oz grippa lead, around 22inches of korda supernatural soft braid, to a size 8 owner hook, baited with an 18mm MM boilie. I also had a stop knot around 3foot above the lead with a large korda flying backlead rest on it. I knew the back lead wouldnt fly back on the cast as I was only fishing less then a rod length out so just lowering the rig off the rod tip was enough. I then let a little slack line out so the back lead was resting on the bottom, so I knew I had all my line at the buisness end pinned down to the bottom to hopefully eliminate any passing fish from touching the line.
My swim >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I had baited right in the edge, next to the cabbage weeds, its around 4 foot deep here, shelving off to around 8-10ft a little further out.
I was happy with my set up, happy the line was laying on the bottom, and happy I was fishing over bait that I had earlier introduced, All I needed now was for the fish to turn up. I decided that once I had cast out I would leave the rod there until I packed up. However I decided to reel in and put another handful of bait out and reposition the rod a little further out. I wasnt too bothered as I had a good spread of bait in that area, so it mattered not where I positioned the bait.
It was then that I decided to get my lure rod out of the car and have a few chucks of a spinnerbait. Not wanting to disturb my barbel/carp swim too much, I had half a
dozen chucks of the lure to the left of the swim, first cast a small pike darted out of the cabbage and grabbed the lure, I could see it squirming and trying to shake the hook free under the surface, which it did a few seconds after hooking it. Second cast along the same line and the fish had it again, this time straight into the net after a few seconds of fight. At around 3lb it wasnt going to break any records, but I was happy I didnt blank. I had several more casts but not wanting to disturb my baited spot any more I packed the lure rod away.Around 21.15, I was on the phone to my missus when I thought I saw the tip of my barbel rod knock. I mentioned it and then hang up the phone, hoping the tip was going to whip round at any moment. A few minutes later, the tip knocked again and there was definately something subsurface that was interested in my 18mm boilies.
This happened a couple more times before I eventually packed up at 22:00.
The weather has been shite for the past 3 days now, with intermitant showers and muggy weather. Hopefully the rain will liven the river up abit, as there seemed to very little flow. The river was alive with fish when the river fell calm, there were hundreds of small fish topping, followed by some larger fish rolling mid river, then slightly closer to me, until there was a couple of rolls about 3 rods lengths out.
These fish rolling where probably bream, although they could have been carp, but I didnt get a good look at them so who knows.
I returned to the river the next day and introduced another 3/4 of a kilo of boiles, so thats a kilo and half of boilies and probably half a kilo of pellet, so im hoping something will move over it in time for my next session which im hoping will be thursday evening!
