7th October Bristol Avon

I guided a couple of good anglers Nick and Steve today, they wanted to catch chub and barbel. The main objective was to learn about swim selection and read the water and try and find some. Followed by learning a few different methods.

We met early in the morning and made our way to the river. We fed a few swims with pellets and hemp with a view to fishing them in rotation. There were a good few chub around however the barbel were few on the ground preferring to hid away from view.

We fished a few swims and Steve and I had some barbel feeding, in mid river. I showed him how you can move the barbel around and eventually had them feeding under our feet. We lowered the bait and PVA bag into place at which point the barbel scarpered not to return. We cast out nearer the cabbages and we watched the chub over the next 30 minutes pass over the bait occasionally picking up the odd pellet.

Then with a sudden flash a chub bolted into mid river scarring the minnows out of the water. Steve lifted into the chub which promptly dashed into the cabbages. Steve though soon had the chub out of danger and into the landing net.

A good start to the session 4lbs 6oz

Steve and his 4lbs 6oz chub

Nick in the mean time had a small chub of about 2lbs which had a ridiculous size head to body ratio. Looking at it’s head it should have gone over 4lbs.

He then lost a rather large fish that got him into the snags which we think was a barbel.

So having both caught fish we decided it was time to look at another fishery which produces some large chub and barbel.

Arriving at the next venue we went fish spotting and came across some barbel and chub feeding, nothing of gigantic proportions but still worth angling for. I showed them around the fishery and the swims that produce good fish, so their knowledge was much enhanced. This again was a goal that  they wanted to get from the session. One of the things I’m very proud of is that most of the time I fish waters where the guided anglers can return time and time again to fish for themselves.

Once fishing I stayed with Nick whilst Steve went off after a barbel we had seen in a shallow run. Soon Nick had cast out into the area that contained a good few chub. He took a fish very quickly however it was just a small one of about 2.5lbs.

We moved swims to let this one settle again. This time it was Nicks time to see the action from a chub getting hooked. It shot out into mid river before attempting to get into the far side snags, Nick was more than a little excited with the action and soon had the chub ready for netting. It wasn’t the biggest chub in the world but a beautiful conditioned 3lbs 9oz fish. Fat as could be.

Nick and a chuby chub of 3lbs 9oz

So with two fish under his belt it was time to go and see how Steve had fair-ed. As we approached Steve’s net was wet so that’s a good sign. He had not caught the barbel but a chub of about 3lbs, which I think was very good as it’s a difficult swim to fish.

We decided that Steve needed to even the score to 3-3 so he came up to fish for a chub from one of the two swims that were baited.

We fished the first one without success, then tried the second. We could see the chub coming in and picking up the bait and not getting hooked and there would be a small tap on the rod top.

As I was watching the area where his bait was I saw a cloud of silt and just said hello something is there when his rod hooped over and he was playing a small barbel of about 2.5lbs. Very quickly into the fight a rather large pike grabbed the poor thing and shot off downstream. Luckily the pike let go and we quickly bundled the barbel into the net. On inspection there was one small puncture wound on one side and a few scales misplaced on the other. This little fish was very lucky. We unhooked it and let it go ASAP not wanting to stress it any longer than necessary. The pike though was big and was not far from where I saw a 20lb plus fish earlier in the season.

We decide to spend the last hour fishing for barbel in two swims where I had baited with hemp.

A rainbow so very bright against the dark rain filled sky

The rain shower fell creating a beautiful rainbow and one I couldn’t resist taking a photo of. The two intrepid anglers continued fishing until dusk fell and it was time to leave unfortunately no barbel came to the net from these two swims.

The guy’s though had a great day.