Its that time of year again when my favourite rivers become unfishable, and I start to travel to pastures new to grab a few hours fishing on running water that has not broke the banks and entered the fields. I have been trying a very small river in the Midlands a lot this year, and it never fails to throw up the odd fish here and there, nothing massive but you never know !!
When the river is up,coloured and the outside temperature falls below 10degrees barbel fishing becomes a little easier, not that easy, but things start to go in our favour, you may not think it when your freezing your knackers off sitting by a river but have a quick think, natural food has started to become more scarce for the barbel, anglers food (not that many on the bank) has become scarce and the coloured water tends to give them that little bit of confidence that has been missing in the low clear levels of the summer. The only thing that holds me back in the winter is the weather, its great to get out, but I am sure that we have all lost the plot somedays when a 20mph easterly is blowing rain in our faces, we have all been there, but as I always say, youll not catch owt in the house.
I decided to make my way down onto a small west midlands river that has only just started to show a few barbel, small they may well be, but I am sure I have been one of the first anglers to catch them out of there, and it wont be long before others catch on, the bait starts going in and these fish start to become bigger.
Unfortunately when I get there the conditions are against me, this river runs grey when flooded and has a lot of road water going into it, but never mind I am there now and decide to go through the motions anyway.
I step up my 1.25lb test curves not by much and move onto a 2lb set up with a bigger Korda Gripper lead and a basic running rig, with a couple of pole elastic stop knots above the rig to ward off evil leaves !!! and decide to feel rather than put the rod on a rest, just to get an idea of whats hitting my line, and if there is any new snags in the swim.
I have opted for a braid hooklength and 15lb mainline, on baitrunners.
Baitwise I am taking no prisoners, nor investing in the tackle trade, two tins of meat ripped up and put in a plastic bag !!!
The swim I am fishing has a sandy bank when it is at normal level, and this is where I intend to put my bait, I have also popped another rod in to fish upstream if the going is really slow, and I had a feeling it would be, I also put a stick in the bank to see if the river was rising or falling so I could reference that mark.
Throughout the day the river had risen only an inch or two, so as time was getting on I changed swims to one nearer the car and put out both rods, one upstream, one down, whilst I sat in the middle and emptied my last bit of bovril from the flask, and no sooner had I poured a cup the downstream rod went, a proper wrapround, and as I am playing it the upstream rod dropped back, so cack handedly I picked that rod up and put the baitrunner on while I dealt with the 1st bite, with that in the net I took hold of the other one and after a few mins I had 2 barbel in the net, at the same time, in a crap swim, after fishing hard in a banker all day ?
fishing eh ? I suppose thats what makes us go, the unknown and the ability to always surprise !!!
they were not big fish but very welcome on a cold day, and to think that I had walked past this swim twice today, shows you that they do move around, and its given me the confidence now to fish more swims on this tiny river.
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