The Sessions August 2014

4 Aug – River Trent

After a long week of 7 eleven hour nights at work I had a week of rest days to do what I wanted and with no other plans it was fishing all the way.

I drove up to the Trent for another session and was buzzing with excitement after my successes in July. I went straight to a favourite area expecting it to be empty being a Monday only to find three anglers in the area, normally I’d be off but decided to stay and see how my MAD baits specials faired against their bait. So I dropped in a swim I know quite well.

The weather had cooled a bit but it was still warm at 24 degrees, sunny with broken cloud. The river levels were normal for summer but after talking to the other anglers it appeared that it hadn’t fished well over the weekend and they were struggling.

I got set up and dropped my rigs in at approx 20:00 hours with the intention of recasting every hour.
I didn’t have to wait long and had a small Chub after 40 mins, I recast both rods and an hour later something tried to rip the right hand rod of the rest, the fight was the usual punching well above their weight but the Barbel went exactly 10-00 so I was over the moon, Aug double sorted already!!
Over the next 90 mins I lost a small fish and had Barbel at 7+ and 8+. It then got quite cold for Aug, the flow really picked up with weed coming down and wiping the rods out so I reeled in and got some sleep.

The other anglers had all gone home without catching which gave me even more confidence in my bait.
I put the rods out again at 06:00 hours and had a small Barbel straight away and packed up soon after.

5 Aug – River Ouse

I’d carried on trickling River Spice into the swims and went down at 19:00 hours to find some one in my hot spot. Now I try to be a bit of a secret squirrel especially with a little spot like this but when I spoke to the guy he virtually quoted what I’d caught without knowing it was me……wow!
The only plus was he was not fishing right on the money but casting across and down stream. I dropped in another of my baited spots and got pasted by Crayfish for the next 3 hours, they were even dragging the rig into their holes in the bank.
The other guy left at 22:00 hours so I left it an hour and then moved into the swim. I had two 3+ Chub in the morning but no Barbel, all the disturbance did me no favours so I packed up at 07:00 hours.

6 Aug – Secrets (Sturgeon & Catfish)

After a wash, change of rods, reels and tackle, food for two days it was off to the Midlands. My plan was to fish for Sturgeon for 24 hours and then move to another lake that reportedly held some big Crucians for another 24 hours.
I got to the first lake at midday and set up in a swim called “no fish corner” by the locals, but I love it and have done really well there catching Sturgeon to 52 pound as well as six 40’s.

My usual approach for these is 3 pound test curve rods, 15 pound line as they are powerful and really fight. My rig is made up of a 1 metre Korda safe zone leader, a small 1 oz inline running lead, 10 inches of Suffix Camfusion hooklink to a size 4 Gardener Talon tip hook, I finish it of with a small back lead fixed 10 feet up the line with float stops this keeps it all pinned down to the bottom but offers minimal resistance. My hook bait is a piece of liver and I change this every two hours to keep a blood sent trail in the water. I bait up again every two hours with a handful of small cubes of chopped luncheon meat and three good handfuls of small mixed halibut pellets.

The rigs were lowered in a foot from the bank in about 24 inches of water, perfect!! I then sat back in the sun in anticipation. Things didn’t go to plan and by 21:00 hours I hadn’t seen any sign of fish apart from nibbly pibbly’s nailing my pellets. So reeled one in, changed the hookliink to 45 pound quicksilver with a size 4 Talon Tip and put on a sardine with the head chopped off and lowered this in over to the left in a reedy bay in the hope of a Catfish.

01:35 hours the sardine rod tore off and I was soon into a very strong fish. Now I’ve caught a lot of Catfish and very big ones too but this fish deceived me some what and was not as big as expected but I wasn’t complaining and netted a 37-04.

08:05 hours, I’d kept bait going in most of the night and made myself get up every two hours and was finally rewarded with a take but it wasn’t a big fish, a Diamond Back Sturgeon at approx 15 pound.

I fished on till midday and then moved onto pastures new.

7 Aug – Lakeside Fishery, Hinckley

I arrived at the lake at 13:30 hours and although quite pretty my first impressions weren’t good. It was busy and a lot of the lake covered in blue green algae. I got the marker rod out and walked round the lake twice checking margin depths in all the likely looking areas. I didn’t fancy it but was a long way from home and there were pictures of definite 3 pound plus Crucians in the hut.

Eventually I settled for a swim in the middle of the dam wall where the margins were deepest, approx 3-4 feet at the most.
My set up was two rods on Drennan inline method feeders, short 5 pound Supplex hooklink to a Drennen size 14 hook. I started with 3 fake casters on one rod and a single grain of fake corn on the other both on hair rigs. Groundbait was F1 pellets, Dynamite Krill groundbait, laced with liquid Krill and I loose fed sweetcorn and maggots.

It didn’t take long for the skimmers to move in and it was one after another. I changed both to floats as the presentation was better and fished sweetcorn but same result and they didn’t stop for hours. It got totally disheartening and I felt I was wasting bait so I put both rods out on Carp rigs for the night with my MAD baits specials on both. They worked as expected and I had a pretty 17 pound fully scaled Mirror in the night.

I was up at the crack of dawn and put the floats back out, for the next five hours it was a skimmer a chuck and by 11:00 hours I gave up and went home.

10 – 14 Aug – River Ouse

The weekend had seen lots of strong winds and rain (the back end of Hurricane Bertha). The river levels had come up and the weather during this period was cooler and unsettled.
I did four sessions with mixed success. The Otter was becoming a real problem and was now in the swim with young cubs so I made the decision to stop baiting up, it was obviously working but the fish were attracting the Otter to visit the area more. I had takes every night, the low point was loosing a Carp in a snag but the high was a lovely summer Chub at 5-10.

I drove up and got caught in traffic and was stationary for an hour which made a bad start straight away. I got to the river for 19:30 hours to find only two anglers there, it had cooled down a lot for August, was low pressure, cloudy and a strong easterly wind blowing into my face, not comfortable but good conditions.

The levels were up due to the rain we’d had and the river had a bit of colour, perfect for my favourite swim so the choice was easy. I got the rigs in for 20:15 hours and got set up.
20:35 hours, bang the right hand rod went over and I was playing a strong fish, just when I thought I had some control it al went slack, when I reeled in I found the fluocarbon had broken on the loop join to the small piece of braid. Up to this point I’d had no problems with this but the doubts get in your head, does the fluocarbon deteriorate, does the braid wear through it and so on…..

22:30 hours, by now I was very cold, hoody on, hood up and under the bedchair cover, for August it was freezing and under 10 degrees. I got a take and hooked a fish that felt different from the normal Barbel tug of war and was real pleased with a Trent Chub at 5-12.

Over the next two hours I took a further two Barbel at 6+ and 7+ and was rebaiting both rods each time.
01:40 hours, another belting take and this one felt much bigger and fought really hard, my nerves were tingling and hoping the hooklink held but all went to plan and I landed a lovely Barbel at 11-04.

02:40 hours, literally on the hour the rod crashed over again and I knew as soon as I struck it was a good fish and the line melted of the spool. The fight was epic in the extra water and it would not give up, eventually it slipped over the net and I knew it was my best of the season, a lovely long summer Barbel at 13-13, the only disappointment was the pictures weren’t great.

It went quiet for a while that allowed 3 hours broken sleep as it was so cold. A mistake on my part was not taking a sleeping bag, one I wouldn’t repeat again. 06:00 hours saw a take on both rods, I landed both, one at 3+ and the other at 10-03.

I took another two at 5+ and 6+ before packing up at 08:00 hours to go home and get ready for another week of nights at work, I drove home thinking what a great session and what a great season I was having and could it get better or would I come down to earth with a big bump…..

26-28 Aug – River Trent

Having finished a week of nights I had seven days fishing ahead and was really looking forward to it after the last session. It had been raining a lot with westerly winds and low pressure, good conditions but not great to set up in. On the Monday when I got up it was horrible so I went to the gym and caught with jobs at home.

It was the Tuesday I drove back up to the Trent, it was sunny but still very windy. A friend had fished the weekend and he had struggled and said not much got caught at all but I still felt confident as they seemed to be right on my bait.
When I arrived at 17:30 hours it was almost empty and the river quite high again and pushing through so I went straight for the same peg.

The session didn’t start to well, I was having to use 8oz leads to keep the rigs in place and they were only lasting 20 minutes due to weed in the flow dragging them of the spots. Over the next four hours I had a 6+ and a 9-06 but was getting through no end of, bait, pva due to rebaiting and hooks as quite often the points were getting done on the rocks when dragged along the bottom. It got to the point I thought I’d have to move as I couldn’t keep them in place so I walked along with a rod and bare lead. I know the stretch quite well and looked in swims where the flow was not as bad close in and tried a lead there and they held no problem, it was like a light bulb coming on in my head and changed the session.

I went back to my swim, changed the lead to a 5oz and dropped it off the end of the rod tip right in the edge but just over the drop off and it was fine and missing the weed. The margins here are very rocky and a tackle nightmare so I knew if I hooked a fish I would have to get it up quickly but it was worth a go.

23:00 hours, I hooked one straight away and was doing ok when the line went slack, I was fearing the worst and thought I’d been cut off but it was the little loop again so that was it I reeled in and set up again on what is now my tried and trusted Barbel rig.

There was no change to the 15 pound mainline and 5 ounce flat lead on a lead clip. The hook length was still 5 feet of 12 pound ESP ghost fluocarbon tied to the swivel with a Palomar knot, this is attached to a 3 inch piece of 15 pound Drennen Barbel braid with a 6mm oval ring. The fluocarbon is again tied with a Palomar and the braid a loop knot, a size 10 Drennen Barbel hook completed the set up. As I write this in January 2015 it has still not let me down.

The night got very cold and must have been close to a frost (in August!!!) but the bites came consistently through the night resulting in a bream, one fish lost and Barbel at 6+, 7-02, 7-08, 7-09, 7-10.

07:55 hours, it was starting to warm up and I had another take and hooked a good fish, this is where I learned a lot about the swim. Straight in front there is an undercut on the drop off and the fish hooked on the left of the swim go straight for it and then it is luck if you get them out, I managed to pull this one out and it went 10-11 and there was damage on the bottom 6 inches of the hooklink. Little did I know that this under cut would cost me later.

By 10:10 hours I’d had another at 8-15 and was thinking of packing up. Although I’d caught and enjoyed the session the big fish didn’t seem to be there, I was running low on bait and had no food left. Fate was to deal a different out come, the left hand rod went over and cut me off on the under cut, that was it and I started to pack up. Everything was in the car except one rod and the net when that rod crashed over, I picked the rod up and the fish melted line of the spool and went down stream and felt very heavy.

I walked down about 20 feet and played the fish for what seemed like ages, everything was going my way and it felt huge and my knees were shaking. I got the lead out of the water and turned to pick up the net, that moment of perhaps slightly less pressure allowed the fish to power away again upstream and into the under cut.

I couldn’t move it no matter which angle I pulled at, I put the rod on the rest for 40 minutes but she wouldn’t move, I tried all the angles again and could feel the fish kicking but I couldn’t get her out. I’ve been in many lakes to get snagged Catfish and Carp but the Trent is a different proposition. It was only a swim of perhaps 10 yards to get past the under cut and ease the fish out, but its 16 feet deep and was flowing hard and there was no one about. I thought about it long and hard as I knew this was a special fish but it was just too risky, if there was some one to hold the rod and keep it away from the snag once she was out I was in, but on my own no way so after over an hour I had to try to pull it out and the inevitable happened the line parted and I was gutted.

I sat there for a bit and we all know that feeling after the loss of a good fish and weighed up my options. I could go home or now the potential for a good fish was on I could stay, it’s a no brainer I was staying until I ran out of bait. So I set up camp again for midday. I thought about my set up and thought the bigger lead may have contributed to the loss by jamming in the rocks so I tried a 3oz flat lead and it held. The other subtle change was to cast both rods down stream of the under cut and when I hooked a fish walk down away from the snag. I made a new landing spot further down and I was ready to start again.

I had a stroke of luck when one of the local anglers came down and was happy to watch my gear while I shot to the village for a top up on food, 20 minutes later I was fishing again. Over the next three hours I had fish at 9-13, 9-09, 7-06 and a hook pull. It went a bit quiet so I grabbed a couple of hours sleep and put the baits back out at 18:45 hours.
I had a take straight away and had no problems with my new landing spot and landed a lovely fish at 12-10

19:35 hours, I had another 3 foot twitch and another epic fight, everything went to plan and I got another good fish at 12-07

21:00 hours and the rod smashed over again and I got another double at 11-10, that was two nines and three doubles in just a few hours fishing I was over the moon and soon on the phone sharing my good times.

At this point I was really tired and kept falling asleep so wasn’t managing to bait up every hour but I managed further fish of 9-06, 7-11 and 9-04. What a session that included five nines and four doubles, I used all my bait, approx 70 pva bags, two and half packs of hooks and a spool of braid but it was worth every minute.

I did a night on the Ouse for two Chub and a morning session on the River Nene, a river I will spend more time on next season. I didn’t get a Barbel from the Nene but did get a bonus 6-03 Tench.

What a month!!

August – 3 trips to the Trent, 6 to the Ouse and 1 to the Nene, 30 Barbel / 8 doubles.