10th October Bristol Avon and a rare double figure barbel

I had a couple of pints of casters and hemp which needed to be used up from my fishing fridge in the garage. It’s a great time of year where small baits can catch barbel and chub.

My choice of swims was one where there was a snag which contains some good size chub and a few barbel. The aim was to bait drop a couple of pints of the mix in over 2 hours while I fished another swim, then return and see who is at home.

So after completing this job I went to look at the other swim. Sure enough 4 barbel were swimming around and were feeding. None of them were much over 8lbs, so I decided to just feed them and get them moving around the swim.

The wind has been a real pest over the last few days, I’m unsure why it’s been so bad. The willows branches had been breaking off and much of this debris was drifting down in the minimal current.

I topped up the caster and hemp swim after about 1 hr and took another walk fish spotting.

The rig I was going to use was a simple feeder filled with hemp and casters with each end being plugged with halibut ground bait. On the business end I used 8 inches of braid with two rubber casters hair rigged. The BA is full of little fish and they would soon make mince meat of any real ones on the hook.

Normally I would use an inline feeder however there is no flow to flush them out.

I’ve found an absolute beauty which I have not come across before. Now I normally modify black cap feeders but this feeder looks as though it will do a great job. Problem being that I need to wait until the winter and a good flow before testing and give it a verdict. Can’t wait!

So after another hr I returned filled the feeder and cast out. The breeze was very strong and kept pulling the rod tip in all directions. Finally after about 10 minutes the rod top pulled around and I lifted into a powerful fish.

This was no chub but a barbel. It gave me a right old fight. I just managed to stop it from going into a far side snag then it burried into a weed bed. Clouds of silt bellowed up from the thrashing tail in the weed. It didn’t look too big and I was thinking 6-7lbs. Even when I had it in the net it didn’t look that big. However on lifting it out I thought it might just be close to a double.

On the Avon scales when the dial goes pass the midday position on the dial as this did then it’s time to be happy.

10lbs 5oz of happiness!

These double figure fish are quite rare on the Bristol Avon. They used to be plentiful.

I continued fishing and caught a good few chub up to 3lbs 12oz but none of the other bigger fish came along. Finally the daylight drifted into dusk and it was time to leave. How many chub I caught I can’t quite remember but it was more than 6 and a good barbel in 3 hrs fishing isn’t too bad.

Two other barbel came out in the afternoon to Clive a very good barbel angler, so it looked as though they were feeding.