13th October Bristol Avon

Well here I was trying for those barbel. I arrived at 3pm

As I walked along I came across Paddy whom I had not seen this season so I spent the best part of an hour chatting and finding out he has caught some huge fish during the summer both chub and barbel. He was fishing away with bread flake and worms (not at the same time). I moved upstream from him and fed some barbel in what I call the 5 minute swim. I went back down and collected Paddy to come and have a look. Sure enough there were 4 of them feeding on the bait I had put in.

I offered him the first cast but he said no, you have a go.

So I settled into the swim and cast out with the normal PVA bag. I threw a few pellets in to get them searching around for grub.

Now I couldn’t see much in the river because the sun was lower. I was feeling uncomfortable when the 10 minutes were up, but after 20 minutes the tip pulled around and there I was playing this small barbel. However as I looked up another mate Kevin was walking along the bank and mentioned something about poaching!!!! He gave me a few words of encouragement as I played the barbel, like put your back into it, stop messing around etc.

Soon the little barbel was in the net photographed and returned quickly.

3-4lber from 5 minute swim

So after we chatted for another 30 mins or so  I moved to a couple of other swims for the evening. Kevin wandered off downstream and for me the remainder of the evening until 7.30 was very quite.