“Boom “barbel 12lbs 10oz

So after a great start to the river season and two 6lb chub plus a 5lb 11oz a week had passed and I was soon heading down to the H.Avon. I deliberately didn’t get up at the crack of dawn for this one as I wanted to explore another part of the river and needed the sun up to see where the fish were.

The drive down was painfully slow however I wasn’t in a hurry.

I arrived to find not another soul on the river. I just couldn’t believe this. Leaving my lunch in the car the tackle was taken to a swim which in the past has given and others some great sport with plenty of chub.

Armed with 6 pints of maggots and about the same of hemp I started to bait drop out some of each. These chub were hungry and I suspect it’s from the excursion of spawning that has them doing this.

It didn’t take long for them to reappear and feed on the spot.

I’m not in a hurry to fish, rather to look and see if there is a 6lber in the shoal. I don’t want to waste expensive bait on smaller fish, as I would rather move on.

Well there looked to be a couple that were close to this size. As I slowly put the tackle together I would top up the swim with hemp and maggots to really get them going.

The line was 6lb breaking strain this time as apposed to the wrong 8lb the previous visit. A black cap feeder and size 20 hook to 4lb hooklink finished it off.

The rod was the trusted Korum two piece river quiver.

The cast was right under my bank so keeping a very low profile I could see the chub’s every move. There were plenty of plucks and pulls where the chub were just picking the maggots up in their lips, very cunning.

A few casts later though I hooked a chub that didn’t provide me with much of a fight. However it was a long fish of 21 ” but only weighed 4lbs 14oz. I have had 6lbers at this length.

I had another couple of smaller ones just after, then with the sun getting higher the fish became very shy. I even had them taking maggots in the flow and even with 3lb line on a float they wouldn’t touch them. Cunning so and so’s.

Right a change of plan I went very long with the hooklink, 3 ft in fact.

This did the trick and two 5lbers fell to this change.

All of these photograph chub are 21 ” long !

I went back to the car for lunch and bumped into Dave another angler. He fishes for barbel and was just looking around for a visit later in the evening. We chatted about the river and how low it was and said farewell.

I wandered back and put more hemp in and maggots in while i sat down and had lunch. I was quite surprised to find two barbel in the swim feeding on the bait, one looked about 4lbs and the other 8lbs. I certainly didn’t want to encounter these on my light rod and line. So I took the bait dropper off the 2lb barbel  rod and made up a boilie rig. Out went this on 12lb line. I sat back waiting for their return.

Well the chub didn’t like the line, as they could see it for sure and stayed away from the swim. Ok after 1 hour I called it a day and returned to the swim feeder and maggots. I had one more small chub of about 4lbs on this method, plus I hooked a dace that was devoured by a pike on the retrieve.

It was about 4pm when I notice two barbel patrolling up and down the same line before me. So a grabbed a few boilies and hand threw them out to where I though they would land close to the barbel. Sure enough they both came out looking for them.

Needing no second invitation I put on a pva bag of smaller pieces of the boilie and a 3/4 size of a whole one.

I cast out when the barbel went off downstream so as not to spook it. It landed in shallow water in a small amount of weed. Within minutes the barbel was sighted again. I opted to hold the rod to keep as much line as possible out of the water. Up she came closer and closer, then you get that knock followed by that surge of a take and she was on.

The fight was good but not spectacular just a plunging pull and a surge every so often. I thought it was the 8lber.

Soon she was ready for the net.

When I went to lift the net I thought this is no 8lb barbel, but perhaps a double. On the unhooking mat she was magnificent bronze and beautiful with a good girth.

31″ long with some damage to the tail, other than that gorgeous.  Not having fished for them now for a few years it was stunning to see her.

On the scales she went 13lbs take 6oz off for the weigh sling and 12lbs 10oz.

So after resting her in the net to ensure a safe release she swam off looking 8lb. Well not exactly!

So after this I rebaited for the chub again. Landing one more small one after a while. The chub though became less interested. So I went for a walk and found Dave weighing a chub of 6lbs 1oz. I stopped for a chat and saw him take another of 6lbs exactly. He was well chuffed even though he was after barbel. I shared my exciting news of my catch which he seemed pleased about.

I said farewell for the second time to Dave and made my way back to the chub swim. This time it was swarming with dace. I caught a few more of these lovely things.

Then deciding the H.Avon had been very kind to me today I started to pack my stuff away for my long journey home.

Happy days indeed!