Irwell Barbel Quest Pt 3

After being given information about a 200yd stretch of the river where 2 barbel have been reputed to have been caught already this season I spent an evening searching water with a few pints of maggots and my trotting gear.
Despite being subjected to an all out assault by the rivers minnow population i have found a lovely undercut bank which drops away to an 8ft hollow. I reckon this little pot of a swim gove fish excellent cover and a steady supply of food. Next time I get the time, I will be leaving the maggots at home and using two tip rods, one with luncheon meat, the other halibut pellet. Maybe i will even do a little pre-baiting.

Childs Play

After last weeks visit to the lake when i was lucky enough to get one bite in 5 hours, I opted for a change of tactics.
Ditching the heavy feeder rod and pellets, I instead used my 6metre margin pole fitted with 14s elastic.
I plumbed up at about 5ft and to begin with fed the swim with 3 tangerine sized balls of fishmeal groundbait which also contained a handfull of micro pellets. Hookbait was good old bread flake on a size 14 Kamasan611 extra strong.
There was a good chop on the water so i wasnt too worried about the profile of the pole scaring the fish.
I caught these three lovely tincas - the largest 5lb 5oz. I lost a couple too, one of which straightened the kamasan extra strong hook!!
As the evening drew in and the wind dropped the bites dried up and my swim filled with small roach and perch which pecked away at the bread flake, so i swapped over to bread paste.
Tony dropped by for the last half hour, and his young lad Logan was keen to get in the hot seat and have a go with my pole.
Single maggot on a size 14 saw him catching a steady succession of little roach and perch. The tench having been spooked by the pole.
If the rain holds off then hopefully I will be able to get a few hours on the Ribble this weekend - otherwise I will have a last go for the tench with Phil. No matter whether its this weekend or the next I am going to use tares over hemp and micro pellets the next time i visit this lake, as i am sure that there will be some cracking roach in here too.

I usually name the venues i fish but would rather not in this instance for obvious reasons this being a public blog.

However if you send me an email i will be happy give you the details.

Tench Heaven

I spent the late afternoon and evening with Phil-K at one of our club waters which is renowned for its large head of tench. Neither of us had fished this venue previously and despite being given a few pointers by friends as to which pegs to fish and tactics to use we both struggled to get bites.

I spent the afternoon watching my tip being plucked too and fro as small fish attacked the 10mm pellet I was using as hookbait but only had one really good wrap around bite which resulted in a new pb tench of 4lb 14oz.

Towards the end of the afternoon/evening both of our swims were fizzing with feeding fish, but no matter what bait we used we couldnt buy another bite. I'm looking forwards to another visit when i shall try using pole tactics to see if a better standard of bait presentation and more accurate ground baiting will see us catch more fish.

I'm not complaining though, big tench should be the reward for using a little watercraft rather than being just another lump in a commercial water piggery.

Irwell Barbel Quest Part 2 - An Impossible Dream

I spent Friday evening back on the banks of the Irwell, this time equiped with two rods rather than one.

Straight lead with a banded 10mm Halibut pellet on each rod. No bites in 4 hours - not even a twitch. Sitting on a river bank with only quiver tips to concentrate on soon results in my attention wandering - i did enjoy myself feeding the minnows though.

I spoke to a guy who told me that he had been fishing the river for the last 25 years and had only caught one Barbel and that was 7 years ago!

Maybe I might not achieve my target this year but it won't be for lack of trying.

The next time I go to a tackle shop I am going to buy a baiting needle so that i can hair rig rather than band the bait and also buy some pva bags so that i can groundbait more accurately.

Running total now up to 7 hours.

Irwell Barbel Quest Pt 1

Over the years there have been persistent murmurings that people have been catching Barbel from the Irwell, and it seems to be an accpeted fact that 500 of them were stocked into the river in the early 1990's. Despite having fished the river on a regular basis over the last few years i have still yet to see one even though i am assured by some very reliable sources that they are there.
So - rather than continuing roach fishing down near the city centre i have decided to make a concerted effort to catch one of these mythical whiskered beasts.
Because i have been told in strictest confidence the location of swims from which Barbel have reputedly been caught in the past i am not going to post any photos during my Irwell Barbel Quest.

Tuesday evening saw me on the river, tackled up with an avon rod, bait runner reel, big lead and a bucket of 10mm halibut pellets. As this was my first ever trip using this type of gear, i set off in hope rather than expectation.
I dont often use baits this big so having no idea of how to fish in this style i chucked in two or three handfulls of pellets and then gently lobbed in my hokbait over the top.
I was only using one rod - so i had to ask myself basic stuff like how long i should leave my bait in the river before re-casting, should i band the pellet or hair rig it, is the lead too heavey, should i cast into the central flow or on the edges of the main flow, how far will my loose fed pellets carry downstream before hitting the bottom etc etc etc?
It was only to be a short session, 6.30pm til 9.15.
At 8.30 my rod tip hooped over and the bait runner screeched as line was ripped off the reel. Heart in mouth i struck into a fish which continued to streak off down the river making the main clutch on the reel sing.
I realised that this wasn't a chub as the fish made run after run after run. I thought that i couldn't be this jammy to hook into a barbel on my first trip out - and i was right. I wasn't that jammy -it turned out to be a lovely Irwell brownie of 3lb 4oz (I've rediscovered my digital scales).
Alas it jumped ship between weighing and photographing so i cant show it to you - however its tail was enormous - as is the case with most big Irwell trout.
After that i had no more bites or twitches on the tip. Hopefully I will get out again one evening next week for another crack. This weekend there are pb's to be broken as I'm off to "tench heaven" with Phil K.

Fishing In Wroxham

When someone suggested a family holiday on the Norfolk Broads - i had to pinch myself to check that i wasn't dreaming. An anglers delight.

Oh and when i say family holiday i don't just mean Lucia, Matt and myself - all my brothers, sisters and their families, together with some of my cousins and their families, Lucias sister and her boyfriend all descended on Peninsular cottages in Wroxham for a week to celebrate my mothers 70th birthday.

I had promised Lucia that i would spend quality family time with her and Matthew - so trips on the river Bure and to the seaside were standard fayre each day - but every evening i got the fishing gear out for an airing.

I only brought basic tackle which the kids could use, (drop, stand on, etc) so rather than using an elasticated pole I only brought a couple of old 7m whips and a float rod and an old tip rod.

It was good fun teaching the kids to fish and there were plenty of obliging roach and perch.

Even some of the adults had a go - but non were as successful as my nephew Frank who seems like a natural.

During the week we caught roach, perch, skimmers eels and pike fishing outside the cottages we had rented. One quiet afternoon i got my tip rod out and set up using a ground bait feeder. I caught only a few small Roach, but lost at least 5 fish when either the hooklength snapped near the hook or it was bitten through by a fish. I struck into these wrap around bites and felt good fish on, but after no more than a few seconds lost them. This continued despite stepping up the hooklengths to 5.5lb (0.19). Maybe it was Jack Pike taking the maggots or eels i don't know - but as my own personal fishing time was short - i found it frustrating not to be able to carry on fishing to find out what they were. I also lost a great fish in the boat basin outside my cottage on the last day of the holiday (when i used micro pellet as feed and double maggot on the hook- i suspect that it was a big tench).

The week flew by far too quickly - my first visit to Norfolk - definitely not my last.
As you can see from this photo above - my accommodation for the week was an anglers dream. I would love to go back one day for a weeks fishing with the guys and really investigate properly the great fishing that this region offers. I shall add the pike photos once i find out who took them.

If any ones interested here's the link to the cottages. http://www.peninsulacottages.com/