Friday 19th August Bristol Avon

Well after yesterdays downpour of rain I was expecting to see the river up and coloured. Guess what 24hrs after it stopped the river is as clear and low as before. Where did that water go?

I was going to fish for 4 hrs today, 14.30 to 18.30hrs. The stretch I had chosen has been kind to me over the years. Dave and I fished it on Wednesday and we saw some good barbel and chub.

I fed a swim which contained some good barbel and sure enough out they came to play. I also fed another swim and saw other barbel feeding on the pellets. They were not big fish by any means but good fish.

Sight fishing is so exciting, watching the fish pick up the bait and bolt off having made a mistake.

I ended up fishing the second swim I baited leaving the first to settle more as it contains some very large barbel. I cast out the pellet and the bag just behind some submerged ribbon reed type weed. Soon I could see some chub churning up the bottom looking for the pellets. Within about 20 minutes I had a great bite which saw me play a nice small chub of 3lbs 12oz……..no blanks for me today.

I was going to rest the swim now and fed another further upstream. As I walked upstream I came across another angler I know Shaun. He was there with his wife Michelle and his 3 children. Shaun had several barbel feeding on some hemp he had introduced. We chatted for a while about what had been happening on the river. He had been fishing the Teme and had caught some good fish with a good number each day.

I wandered off to feed yet another swim and had 4 barbel feeding, one being a double and 3 smaller ones. They were straight on the pellets, heads down tails up.

I had seen enough and wandered back with my tackle and got right into a very tight swim. I could hardly lift the rod upright, but out went the bait. The barbel drifted into the swim occasionally picking up a pellet. Then 3 would come into view cruising through the cabbages and out onto the gravel patch. This was repeated on a very frequent basis.

The bait had been out there for about 1 hr when the rod tip bounced and the line went off into the cabbages. It didn’t move at first until I pulled into the barbel. Then it sythed through them taking off many heads in the process. I couldn’t lift the rod too high as there were a few branches above. So it was a case of fighting the barbel and the tree branches too. Eventually I managed to net the barbel and secure it while I tried to get me and it out of the swim.

I called to Shaun who had asked me to let him know if I caught one he wanted the children to see it.

We weighed the fish at 6lbs 5oz and Shaun took the photo’s.

No barbel blanks today

I took a couple of photo’s of the barbel and the children as well.

I then moved to the swim where I had seen some large barbel. The result another hour seeing some barbel taking pellets but not mine.