The Sessions - November 2016

2 November – River Trent

After a nine day stretch at work I had a window for a quick overnighter so arranged to meet my pal Matt Marlow for another social, this time meeting on the section of the middle Trent I’d been successful on in Oct. The weather had turned cold and we both felt the Tuesday night would have been better but working full time I have to fish when I get chance.

I drove back up the A1 and met Matt on the bank at 16:00, he had first choice of swims and picked his leaving me the swim I’d caught well from on 23 Oct so I was more than happy. I dropped the rigs in the margin spots and baited up with 20 Pandemic and a few down the section, then it was get the kettle on and have a good natter with Matt.

The temperature was dropping fast and the sky clear, it didn’t look promising but the river was alive with fish topping everywhere. Matt had the first take landing a low 10 which got the confidence up for both of us.

20:40 hours – the next was to my rods resulting in a 7+ Bream. When I recast I noticed frost everywhere, the shelter and car were covered, not the best Barbel conditions but the water was steaming which suggested the water temp had not dropped too much.

23:20 hours – Matt had caught another at 6+ when my left hand rod belted over, the fish felt heavy and I slowly coaxed it upstream and it went in the net first time and was good one at 12-10, my good fortune was continuing and my target still on.

Through the night Matt had another low 10+ and I had two 9’s making it a good night for both of us despite the ridiculous cold. The strange thing was some cloud came over at 4ish raising the temp enough for the frost to all melt, people getting up for work would never have realised how cold it got, the English weather… you can never really predict it.

5 November – Open day

Mad Baits boss Mark Leonard and I were invited to do an open day at Dave Mutton’s shop, Specimen Fishing UK in Coventry, talking about bait and my Barbel tactics.

The weather was cold and horrible which I’m sure put people off coming out but we enjoyed sharing our knowledge with the people that turned up. Regular readers will know my pal Glenn Patterson, he popped in and was his usual self all Burberry’d up, full of smiles and as always it was good to see him. A little later that week I received a nice parcel from my friends at Castaway PVA, its brilliant stuff and I’m pleased and proud to be part of the team promoting it.

23 November – Fenland Lake

I hadn’t been able to get out fishing for three weeks due to work and personal commitments which I found very frustrating as Nov is one of my favourite months. I worked seven straight nights finishing Monday morning giving me a week off but had it rained and rained all weekend and I feared the worst. I went online and checked the levels on the Derwent and the Trent and to confirm my findings I rang my contacts in each area, the rivers were trashed!! It looked like it would be a few days before they were right again so a change of plan was made and I went Perching.

I arrived and by the time I had trimmed the reeds back it was 10:30 hours when I started. I fished both rods on floats tight to the margin reeds on King Prawns, feeding fluro pinkies and prawns. I fished until dark and had eight bites landing then all, a pretty Mirror Carp and seven Perch at 1-07, 1-08, 1-12, 1-14, 1-15, 2-06 and 2-10, a good start to the winter.

For the rest of my time off work the weather had really turned against me, I was busy with family stuff for the weekend of the 26th which was just as well as the rivers didn’t fish well at all. I was due to go out on the 28th but the forecast was not good so a change of plan was made to go Perching again until it warmed up a tad. I drove 30 miles to my chosen venue on the morning of the 29th only to find it frozen……great!!!
That was the end of a frustrating month, when I was at work it looked well worth a go but when I had time off the weather and conditions just turned against me, hopefully December will be better and more settled.

Luckily I still managed a “12” to keep me on target, 3 Barbel / 1 double, one night on the Trent.

Until next month tight lines.

Julian Barnes