Still barbelless
Entry posted by Rusty
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River Kennet, Thatcham, Tuesday/Wednesday 19th & 20th June 2012
A combined blog entry for these two trips because the days were remarkably similar, same weather, same swim, same method, same end result!
This is a Thatcham Angling Association venue and it’s the main the reason I joined up. It really is the club’s jewel in the crown and the relationship with the landowner and residents is managed very carefully in order to retain the fishing rights. There are strict rules governing its use and up until now the permitted fishing hours have precluded dawn & dusk sessions during summer (we had to be off the venue 9:00pm). An agreed extension to these hours this year has made all the difference, we can’t start earlier than 6:30am but can now fish until 10:00pm all season. Other rules aimed at protecting the residents’ privacy are no access during the close season and no guests, basically if you’re not fishing you shouldn’t be there.
Both these sessions were aimed at targeting barbel on the float, Chris Plumb had suggested a good summer trotting swim (not pictured) and I’d managed to get dibs on it on both days. I’m a bit embarrassed to report that in what must have been a total of 15 hours trotting and 6 pints of maggots over the two days I didn’t get so much as a sniff of a barbel. I felt I was fishing pretty well, conditions were perfect with the recent excessive colour dropping out a little, the feed was trickling in constantly and I was exploring different trotting lines in the swim but I could only tempt a few small trout, dace and roach.
If there’s one criticism I would level at my Harrison 15’ rod it’s the weight, after a couple of hours trotting I have to stop and give my arm a rest and it was during one of these enforced breaks that I came across another swim which was to provide the excitement on both days;
On the Tuesday I could see barbel drifting out from under the willows, they’d stay in the flow for a few seconds and then slide back under cover. The photo doesn’t show the 6 foot drop through nettles and nasty vegetation so you’ll have to take my word for it that there was no way to trot the swim from the near bank, even if I could get a float there landing a fish would’ve been difficult. The only way to fish it was to wade over to the willows from an access point further downstream, this was no mean feat, I didn’t want to wade over in the shallows and spook the fish but equally I didn’t want to be swept away by trying to cross the deep channel further upstream. My brain reached a compromise with my sphincter and after careful (but noisy) paddling I positioned myself by the white flowers at the head of the willows. It was a perfect swim, I could push the overhanging willows out of the way with the rod and very gently inch the overdepth float down, each trot would take a couple of minutes and the bait would waft under the branches. With regular feeding I was sure I could tempt them out and I did, after 15 minutes of fishing as quietly as I could I looked down to my left and saw a large barbel holding station in the flow, it was no more than 5 feet away from me and clearly wasn’t bothered by my legs being in the water. It’s at times like that you really don’t need a long rod but I tried to flick the float upstream and of course the movement spooked the fish, back to trotting the willows then. This mini session ended with a savage take at the tail of the swim, I’d been holding the float back with the rod pointing directly downstream, bad practice I know but it was the only way I could stay close to the willows and I thought I’d be able to react quickly enough. I didn’t, I just felt a huge tug and that was it, one straightened hook meant a trip back across the river to my starting swim.
On Wednesday the excitement came from a different perspective, I’d taken some garlic spam and weights for a bit of static bait action. The automatic baiting device was set up in the trotting swim and loaded with maggots, in the meantime I went back to the willows swim with the intention of fishing from the near bank. I concocted a plan to land any fish by taking it upstream to an area where I could use the net, in retrospect this plan was flawed in a number of areas…..float rod + strong flow + barbel = no chance. It wasn’t to matter though, after a couple of practice casts with the ‘pin and 2oz lead in another swim I plonked the large lump of spam in prime position just to the right of where I’d been standing on Tuesday. This spooked the fish initially but they came back after a while and proceeded to ignore my bait, I could see it clearly through my polaroids, one fish entered the swim from downstream and swam directly over it, another emerged from underneath the upstream alder and bumped into the line. It was both fascinating and infuriating to watch, the barbel were so cautious at that time of day, they’d only spend a few seconds in the open water before gliding back to cover.
I gave that method an hour before reasoning that the baiting of the trotting swim should have had some effect by that time, I re-tackled with a float and went back to get a sore arm for the rest of the afternoon. By 6:30pm and god knows how many revolutions of the Witcher I’d had enough, to make matters worse my arms had reacted to the mozzie spray I’d used in the morning, I had no bites but all sorts of different lumps and bumps which were very itchy.
So that’s it, two days of solid effort failed to produced a barbel on the float but it’s hard to be disheartened when a short drive means I can fish venues like this, there’ll be other days.........lots of them.
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