The Sessions - Dec 2021

BBB a new test bait from Madbaits

I finished last month’s piece having returned from a tough trip to Spain where the weather really had an impact on the fishing but we still managed a few decent Carp and Colin had one big Cat on the final day. My fishing car had died and I was waiting for the good or bad news.

I returned from Spain at the end of November and had the next weekend at home with Julie. I’d taken my Toyota Lucida to the garage on 5 Dec and a couple of days later got the news I didn’t want to hear, the advice was to scrap it and look for a new one. The prop shaft and socket had snapped and being an import and old it was difficult to source the parts that would all be second hand as the car is not made any more. It already needed some work doing before the next MOT and the costs were mounting so I took the advice and agreed for it to be scrapped. I really liked that car and was sad to see it go but it was time to start looking for a new vehicle for my fishing, my Mercedes is just too nice to keep putting smelly, wet fishing gear in the back.

11 December 2021 – River Trent, Sutton.

My next opportunity to get out on the bank was the weekend of 10&11 Dec. The weather had been rough all week with lots of rain most days, I’d been watching the river level apps so knew the river was up and swim choice would be massively reduced due to flooding. I had planned to drive up on the Friday but work had been mental and I couldn’t get away in time to get back, pack the car and drive up, I didn’t want to be driving round in the dark while it was raining looking for a swim and I knew a lot of the flood pegs were already taken.

I spent the Friday with Julie and left it a bit late on the Saturday to drive up and didn’t arrive until 16:30. I’d been ringing round so knew which swims were available and headed to Sutton, Judd was in my first choice so I opted for the inside of a big bend hoping to avoid all the rubbish in the flow.

The river was at the top of the bank, highly coloured and flowing hard so I wanted to try an 5oz lead at different ranges to see where I could hold before setting the swim up. But it was hammering it down with rain and getting dark pretty quickly so I set the shelter up first to keep everything as dry as I could.

I cast a rig to the crease and put it in the rest but it went straight round so I reeled it in and put on a 10oz lead, this held for perhaps 20 minutes before being dragged round by all the rubbish catching on the line. I had to keep drawing the casting distance back until I could find an area I could hold bottom on and settled on a spot 20m out with a good clean gravel bottom so I felt I had a chance.

The level came up more bringing down lots of extra rubbish and it was very difficult to keep a rig in place, it was no surprise that both Judd and I blanked. With the temperature being quite warm I’m sure I would have caught if I was in a swim with slack water in front of me but with the popularity of Barbel fishing now particularly on the Trent, those swims were all taken.

New test bait and a new van.

With xmas looming and a family trip away to the south coast between xmas and new year I didn’t think I’d be able to fish again until the New Year so I started looking for a new car.

In the meantime the Madbaits boss Mark rang me and asked me to pop into the factory for a chat as he had something to discuss with me. I dropped in a couple of days later and we started with the usual catch up and banter we always have. He then told he had developed a new bait that he was aiming specifically at Barbel fishing, it is a black dumbbell boilie with some cracking additives we had discussed using last season, it would be wrong to say they smelt nice as they were very pungent but they would certainly be appealing to the Barbel and Chub. To thank me for my help and support over the last nine years Mark has named the bait after me, BBB - Barnes Barbel Bombs and he wanted to tell me in person.

What a brilliant gesture from a top bloke, to say I was flattered and very happy is an understatement and it’s something I really appreciate and won’t forget……thanks pal. Now I just needed to catch some fish on them.

After chatting to friends I decided on a van rather than another 4x4 and started looking for a VW Caddy. Ironically after spending a few evenings looking at eBay and Autotrader I spoke to the garage that look after my cars and they had one that was worth me looking at. It was the short wheel based 2 litre Caddy, it had a new clutch, gear box and cam belt and had only done 108,000 on a 2013 plate, so I took some of my tackle down to make sure it would all fit, a deal was done and I now have another fishing car.

28 December 2021 – River Trent, Sutton.

With covid ripping through the country we decided to defer our family South Coast trip until April and managed to change our booking without any problems, to be honest I think they were just glad we hadn’t cancelled and they’d lost another booking to the pandemic.

Once I knew we weren’t going I started to track the weather fronts and the forecast had changed significantly over the build up to xmas so I planned a two night trip for the start of the really mild weather we had at the end of December that would fit perfectly around family visits to Cheshire.

With south westerly winds, lots of rain and day temps of 10-12 degrees it looked perfect, I checked the river level apps and the level was right up but I knew the perfect spot. I phoned Judd and he sent me some photos of the section and told me nobody was on so I loaded the Caddy for its first trip and headed up the A1, the drive went smoothly and a lot quicker in the new van, suddenly I wasn’t missing my Lucida as much as before.

I drove onto the section and round to the outside of a big bend, the track was very wet and soft after all the rain so I turned the van round and parked up on the firmer slightly raised ground. What I didn’t want was more rain while I was there and then trying to turn the van round on ground that was worse than when I arrived making it difficult to get out. Once I was happy I walked over the flood bank to find the level right to the top of the bank, absolutely perfect for the swim I’d chosen.

It was raining, cloudy and warm at 10 degrees so I got the gear out and set up the swim before it got dark. With the level being so high I got the leading rod out and put the Deeper Pro on to check the features again, I quickly found the feature I was looking for, a nice depression on the near side margin, and put two markers on the bank. It was reading 19 feet deep, 10 feet up on normal levels.

I then put two rods on the feature, one at 19 feet and the other five paces down at 18 feet as it started to slope up, both on 10oz leads that held perfectly. I put one rod on double 15mm OG and the other on a single BBB, both with pva bags, I then put a mixture of 30 OG and Asbo through the swim.

There was still a lot of rubbish coming down but it was manageable and I was recasting every two hours. A double take just after 21:00 got the session off to a good start with an 8plus and fish at 13-11 that got into the main flow and put up a tremendous fight, I ended up walking down 70m to land it, and it was on the BBB which was a great start with the new bait.

I have found previously that the swim responds to a bit of bait so I put another 20 boilies through the swim.

29 December 2021

Two more fish came during the early hours with the biggest being an 11-05 and I put more bait in after each take.

It started to rain before first light and rained for five hours, the level came up bringing down lots more rubbish, at one point a small tree went down in the main flow. Judd had set up at the bottom of the section appox a mile down, I text him to warn him of the tree as I knew what line he’d be fishing in the peg, it was moving at some pace and I’d have guessed 10 minutes but it took 40 minutes to reach him…..

With the water being highly coloured I tried meat on one rod through the day without success and I was having trouble keeping rigs in place and went through a few hooks where the point was getting burred over.

The sky was clear and it felt quite cold and by 18:30 the level had levelled out and the rubbish reduced so the rigs were holding in place, I took the meat off and changed back to OG and put 50 OG and Asbo through the swim.

By 23:30 I’d had two high singles and it felt like the heating had been turned on, the cloud had arrived as forecast and it got warmer as the night went on.

30 December 2021

By 01:00 it was 13 degrees, ridiculous in December!! The bites came a regular intervals and with the first being this stunner at 14-06.

I had another five singles before first light and decided to stay until midday to try to get a double in day light for a better picture. It didn’t take long and I had a 12-05 and another high single before leaving mid-morning very satisfied with a great result on a bonus session.

Flood water fishing can be tough at times, but when you get it right it’s brilliant and I love it.

With Omicron ripping through the country it’s been a tough time for us all but I do hope you all had a good xmas and I wish you a happy and fishy new year.

Until next month, tight lines and be lucky 😊

Big thanks to my sponsors for their continued support,

#freespirit #madbaits #jackpyke #castawaypva

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