Wednesday 13th July Bristol Avon

Thought I would spend sometime today spotting fish and putting down a few markers, as I’m guiding quite a number of people over the next few weeks. I went to look at a few swims where I’ve seen some doubles and other good fish on the middle reaches.

Loaded up with a bucket of hemp I baited a few swims to see what would come along. I guess it wasn’t real fishing but a chance to see who was at home. I arrived at about 6am to find a car already there in the car park, the engine was still warm so it wasn’t an all night angler.

I saw some large barbel up to about 8lbs on the shallows which I think were quite eager to feed. There were about 10 of them in total plus some good chub. The swim I wanted to fish was occupied however there are plenty of others that contain some good fish. The stretch does hold barbel to 14lbs with a good few other barbel in double figures. The river was low and ultra clear which made fish spotting easy. I found one fish that was up in mid water and a very frustrated angler trying to catch it. The fish was easily a double. A few grains of hemp in a back eddy under the anglers feet soon had the thing rooting around on the bottom. The angler gave me the chance to fish for it, however I let him have a go while I looked on, soon the barbel came in for a munch, however a chub of a couple of pounds beat it to the pellet. Never mind the barbel would soon return for sure.

I walked another 3/4 mile upstream and found a couple of other big fish and a few others. I hadn’t realised there were so many large barbel in the river. Time to fill your boots up before the otters arrive, although 3 years ago they had been through the stretch killing quite a number of barbel.

I met a few other guys I knew and one showed me a photo of a near 14lb caught last year, a lovely looking fish.

All to quickly the day was passing into evening and it was time to think about leaving. While walking back the the car I spotted 4 really large barbel in some deep water under a very high bank, to high to be able to land the fish. So the next time I visit these will be my target fish as I doubt whether they have been fished for this season. I’ll need to do some jungle bashing work through the vegetation to get to them.

Over the next couple of days I’m going to try something that I not done since I was a kid, and it’s not licking your elbow. I just hope it works out.