A rather impromptue session last evening saw me rushing back from work at 5pm to pick my brother up ready for a nice evening session on the ribble. Everything was looking great. All tackled up and ready to go. At least that is what I though. 5 minutes away from my brothers house I remembered I had taken my damn leads out of my bag when I went spinning with Tigger. That was 20 minutes lost straight away as I had to drive back to my house and back again.

I picked my brother up who looked just as eager as I did to get down there. We threw his stuff in the car and rushed down to the river. When we arrived I couldnt help but think that had I arrived half an hour earlier as planned I wouldnt be staring at 6 cars parked up and almost certainly containing anglers. I had wanted to fish a swim that had done very well for me at this stage of the season last year but knew this was now not looking likely.

We headed down to the river across the fields wondering where the different anglers would be and crossing our fingers that our swims would be free.

As we neared the bank we could see that the river was down. Perfect for getting the barbel in the fast oxygen rich runs we planned to have a go at. We carried on walking and to our horror we only saw three anglers. That left a potential 3-6 anglers that would be on the remaining area of the stretch assuming 1 or 2 per car. Not looking good. We arrived at the swims and peered down to see two red tips poking out from the overgrown bank. Gutted. We just looked at each other and sighed. There were no other major swims free as people had set themselves up in awkward ways.

We had a scout around and I pointed out a great looking swim comprising of a gravel bar that intersected two deeper glides (very similar to another swim I catch well on). It looked like barbel heaven. Only problem was we would have to make our own swims. There wasn't much room so we knew we would have to fish in close proximity to each other aswell. Probably not a bad idea given the treacherous nature of the bank as we planned to fish into the first hour of darkness and if we fell in we could at least be close enough to help .

We carved a path through the undergrowth and began to clear enough space for our chairs. We were only about ten yards away from each other as trees made it impossible to get further. At least we would be baiting a nice tight area I thought.

20 minutes later I was set up and ready to go. I picked my spot and cast in the first rod. Right on the back edge of the gravel bar in between the fast and slow water, perfect. The usual boilie setup on the business end. Next I tackled up and cast in the spicy meat rod. I had a quick chat with my brother as he tackled up and we remarked on how peaceful it was to be by the river.

I sat down and lit a fag and no sooner had I done so, my rod slammed down into a big arc. Barbel. I knew it. The run just looked too perfect to not be a feeding ground. A great and spirited fight later I could see the powerful fish coming towards my net. It made 2 or 3 last bids for freedom which I have to say the rods (2 new JW Youngs 2lb TC barbel rods) coped very well and I was quite impressed with how they handled.

I returned the fish after weighing it (8lb 6oz) and sat back to rebait. It was at this point that I heard the familiar clicking of my brothers baitrunner. I looked up to see his head poking above the weeds with a big daft grin on his face. He was in too. He landed another barbel at 6lb 2oz.

He hadnt been fishing with me for a long while after selling all his tackle to pay for his motorcross bike but for his birthday I bought him his rods and reels back from my friend that he sold them to which he was over the moon about. He had owned those rods for most of his life and they had given him all of his best fish including double figure barbel, double figure river bream and even a 22lb river carp. He is now considering having them restored by AN's Budgie Burgess.

About ten minutes after my brother returned his fish I heard the soft footsteps of my wife approaching through the weeds. She had come to join us for a while and enjoy the lovely evening by the river. Of course her being a woman and all she soon got bored and the fear of spiders was too much and she left after 45 minutes. It was nice to spend some time with her in such a nice place though no matter how brief.

Myself and my brother sat and whiled the hours away chatting about news and events and talking about fishing trips gone by, occasionally landing a fish before carrying on, and how it was good to have him back with me on our evening sessions which had been such a large feature of last summer. It is hard to get time to spend with family with the job and gym etc so it is good when you can have a passion that you both share and can enjoy together.

Over the course of 3-4 hours I had more bites on the meat than I could count all of which didnt result in a fish for whatever reason and also some good bites on the boilie rod. Im guessing chub and eels in the main as barbel would have more often than not resulted in a hook up whereas the chub and eels could avoid the hook being a hair rig setup. In the end we finished the evening with 5 barbel between us going to my 8lb 6oz and 2 eels (one of them going 2.5lbs) and a feeling of total relaxation. The river is such a nice place to be in the evening and your cares and stresses of the day just fall away and leave you feeling totally at peace.

All in all the evening was fantastic and I cant wait to get down there again. We had a great catch up and caught well which was not bad at all considering we fished swims that we had to carve out ourselves and had no previous knowledge of and as we walked through the moonlit fields we made plans for the return journey.

Cant wait!

P.S. sorry for the lack of photos this time round but I will make up for it next time hopefully