The Sessions - November 2017

A mixed bag of a month

4 Nov 2017 – River Derwent

I had two nights to fish and really fancied the Derwent despite the roadworks and stating I wouldn’t go back this season. It had rained non-stop for 12 hours stopping at lunchtime and was forecast to be cold at 3 degrees through the night.

After finishing work I loaded the car and headed up the M1 and was making good time until I hit the roadworks, what a mistake, it was a snail’s pace! I eventually arrived in the dark and didn’t expect anyone to be there with the weather how it was and was gutted to see a car in the carpark as I knew where they would be. I walked down the field to the area I wanted to fish and sure enough there he was, to make it worse he was clearly a day angler and shouldn’t have been on the section at that time. I thought he would have been putting bait in so didn’t bother to challenge him as it wouldn’t have been worth fishing there, to be honest he didn’t even know I had been behind him as I quietly walked away.

I walked back to the car to get the gear to try a different spot. The trouble with this beautiful section is there are only two good spots on it and the conditions have to be right for each one. I had a feeling after the rain I wouldn’t be able to fish the spot I was in and after lowering in two 6oz leads and watching them get dragged of the spot within 15mins I was right.

Now I’d driven 96 miles to get there so had to think what to do next, a couple of text messages later and my decision was made and I drove across the midlands to Sutton-on-Trent…

River Trent

I arrived at 21:30hours and after a quick chat to the one angler on I went round to the area I’d been successful in last month finally getting baits out by 22:00 hours.

I put both out on Pandemic and baited up with 10 of each, Pandemic and Pure Fish and put the kettle on for a well-earned cuppa.

5 November 2017

01:40 hours – after catching three Bream the rod slammed over and I was clearly into a Barbel, all went well and a nice fish dropped in the net at 10-02

I thought that was the start of a good session but apart from Bream the bites didn’t come, the cold weather was clearly having an effect.

08:10 hours – It had gone really cold and clear, not great conditions, when the rod went over, it didn’t feel like a Barbel and I was right when a good Chub popped up at 5-11.

The day was really quiet, even the Bream had stopped feeding but I’d kept rebaiting every two hours.

15:30 hours – the left hand rod went over and powered off, for a few seconds I was thinking PB all the way until it rolled on the surface, not the behaviour of a big Barbel. I had to pick the net up and walk downstream with it as it flew down in the current, eventually I got it under control and coaxed into the net, it was a fat river Common at 17-10, if only it was a Barbel at that weight!!

The Bream started to feed again and were landed regularly through the evening as it was getting colder and colder. The river level was rising fast and rubbish starting to come down in the flow. At approx. 23:40 hours something told me to check the rods and as I looked there was a full tree coming down, I wasn’t quick enough and it caught the first rod that then got the second. When I finally sorted the mess out losing one rig the river was raging so I put the rods on the pod and went to sleep.

What a great decision as when I woke at first light everything was frozen solid, even the inside of my shelter, the only thing not frozen was me and my sleeping bag and I’d had a great sleep.

I spent the next few hours re-rigging the rods, making new rigs and pva bags while the gear dried out and then headed home. It was a beautiful morning and great just being outside.

7 Nov 2017 – Bridigo Lake

It had warmed up, was dark and cloudy at 10 degrees when I arrived at 13:30 hours. I went to the spot I caught from on my first trip and lowered in two floats with King Prawn. As I only had a few hours until dark I didn’t put a lot of bait in, just one broken Prawn over each and a few red maggots every 15 mins.

It started to rain straight away and rained all afternoon. The first bite was struck and felt heavy on my pound test curve rods but they soaked up the fight really well and a 12 pound Common rolled in the net, it was quickly unhooked and returned and another Prawn lowered into the margin.
Right on last light the float slid away and a 2-09 Perch came to the net, this was quickly followed by a 2-08 before the dark took hold and I was on my way home.

12 November 2017 – River Trent

I finished my weekend at work, drove home and loaded the car for two nights on the river. I wouldn’t be arriving until 21:00 hours so wanted to go somewhere familiar where I could set up easily and drop the rigs in. I headed to an area on the middle Trent I only fish in winter as it gets a bit busy when it’s warm. I was surprised to find two cars on the section on a Sunday night in winter and disappointingly one of them was in the swim I intended to fish so I set up a bit further down in another I’d done well from in the past.

Now as an upstanding citizen I have no issue with bailiffs and do the role myself on a local water, I always take the time to chat and have become friends with many I have met, so I wasn’t to impressed with the initial aggressive approach from the local bailiff who I have to be honest was nearly given winter swimming lessons! The day job kicked in and after “pointing out” he was out of order he calmed himself down and we got on ok. It turns out the area has been getting night visits from our Eastern Euro neighbours and he was down trying to protect the water so fair play to him as we get little help from the proper authorities.

I set the swim up and lowered two rigs baited with Pandemic into the deep margin followed by a few broken Pandemic and Fresh Fish.

21:50 hours – the right hand rod slammed over within 20 mins and fought really hard in the deep fast margin, eventually it slid over the net and looked a double easily as it was so fat, however it wasn’t quite at 9-15.

I thought that would be the first of a few but I didn’t get another bite all night. It had gone clear and frosty and killed the fishing as my fish was the only one caught.

13 November 2017

My intention was to move onto the tidal in the morning and the nights results hadn’t changed that thought so I packed up in the frost and was on the river again for 09:30 hours. It was clear, cold and sunny but was forecast to cloud over and be a warmer night. The river was low and very clear, not great conditions.

I had the section to myself so went in a popular area I hadn’t fished before, it involved a reasonably long cast to the far bank drop off where the deeper run is. A bare lead was cast across and clipped up once I was happy I was on the right bit, then my spomb rod was clipped up the same distance so I could bait up accurately. I then attached an adapted spomb made very cleverly by my friend Christophe Pelhate. He has drilled holes so they sink and made a clever release system so it acts like a bait dropper but obviously can be cast a lot further, brilliant.

I baited up with 5 spombs of broken boilie and a little of my pva mix and cast two rigs baited with Pandemic on the spot. I started to get problems with weed dragging the 6oz leads of the spot and was recasting more than I like, by 15:00 hours I hadn’t had a bite and was getting itchy feet.

I decided to move to the outside of the big bend for two reasons, I could bait up more accurately as I would be fishing under the rod tops and I wouldn’t have so much line out for rubbish to catch on the lines, by 16:00 I was set up again.
It had started to cloud over and the first bite came quickly resulting in a Chub at 4plus, the next bite was a Bream at 7plus but I wasn’t getting many.

21:55 hours – finally a serious pull on the rod top that fought back that resulted in another Barbel at 9-15, how unlucky was that, two on the trot!

I thought that may have been the start of a good session but I only had one more bite from a Bream and went home at midday on the 14th.

That was my final Barbel trip of the month and unfortunately my target of a 12 every month came to an end for another season, but there’s always next time.

River Ebro, Mequinenza, Spain

My annual late November trip to the mighty Ebro system had arrived and I couldn’t wait for two weeks Cat fishing, Colin and I had been discussing it for weeks and were looking forward to a good catch up.

It’s always a risk leaving it so late in the season as the weather can change so quickly there but I like to go late as there are few people around giving us the pick of the swims. Looking back through the years I have had some great sessions at this time of year and a few poor ones. The one big factor is the water temp, ideally in November it wants to be 12-14 degrees and stable, as long as it stays that way regardless of the weather you normally catch plenty.

This year it had been fishing well into November with some big girls getting caught as is normal late in the season but unfortunately for me the weather had turned and the water temp dropped from 14 degrees to 10 in a week, that spells disaster!!

We are both very resilient and never give up easily so we started fishing on the Monday afternoon and that evening were treated to a lovely frosty sunset, pretty but it was freezing and all the colour dropping out of the water.

The first day was a blank so we were on the move in the morning to deeper water that may offer the fish more protection and less caution. The water temp was down again to 9 degrees which did nothing for the confidence at all. I was rowing baits out mid-morning in the freezing fog but the Jack Pyke clothing was keeping me super warm, although gloves would be a good option.

That evening while I was rebaiting I had a take which Colin found amusing as he struck it while I was frantically rowing back in, it all ended well and I landed a very empty fish at 160lbs.

That was the only bite of the evening but better than before so we stayed another day. The only result was a 162 for Colin and the water temp going down to 8 degrees. Things were looking grim but we still had plenty of time left and moved again to deeper water.

The one consolation was the wildlife, I love everything about fishing which includes watching wildlife and have often cursed myself for not having a camera handy when I’ve seen some amazing things. Some you’d never be able to photograph and have to enjoy the moment, one from this season was a family of Stoats that came out in front of me on the River Ivel, two adults and four young, it was a fantastic sight and quite rare to see.

However on this trip I was armed and ready most of the time but so need a tripod……Julie, hint hint!

It was a real privilege to see Ibex on the mountain sides, something I haven’t seen in 16 years visiting the region, yet on this trip there were two groups on different sides of the river. Trying to get decent photos was hard as they just glide up the steep hills I must have taken 200 shots at various distances to get a few good ones but it was a fantastic sight.

Another lovely sight in the area is the Black Redstart, very rare in the UK but we see lots in Meq and to be honest it is a bird watchers paradise. I did manage a couple of great shots of a male.

So how did the rest of the trip go?? We were struggling and running out of ideas and I’ll cover the rest in my December blog.

Until next month be lucky, tight lines and have a great xmas.
November 2017 a difficult month with limited Barbel fishing time, 3 Barbel / 1 double.

Tight Lines

Julian Barnes