Tag Archives: double figure barbel

Just before the end of the river season (and before the COVID-19 lockdown), I fished a very swollen Derbyshire Derwent for barbel. It was a slow day, but the river was visibly dropping as I was there. I stuck with it, dropping The Hook Bait Co’s Garlic Nimrod & Big Squid boilies behind trees and submerged bushes, and eventually my persistence paid off in the form of an 11lb 10oz barbel – a fine finish to my river campaing. I had an issue with my camera flash when I first attempted to take some sef-take photos of the fish (I ended up resting the fish again in the margins, whilst I sorted the camera out), and when I went through the images at home I had several blurry, reject photos. As I flicked through them it looked like I was dancing. It reminded me of the iconic Firestarter video by The Prodigy, so I decided to have a play with making a stop-motion parody of Firestarter by editing together the still photos. The above video from my YouTube channel is the result! It’s just a bit of fun. Enjoy!

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Introduction Juggling time between family, work, friends and other commitments can leave little leftover for fishing trips.  Not an ideal basis for targeting specimen fish, but I’ve worked 6-day weeks since I left school and I remain a mad-keen angler.  Two years ago I bought my first house with my girlfriend and her daughter, which has further constricted my fishing time, but I have plenty of experience in squeezing short sessions into what little time I have left. Rivers are my favourite venues and during the first four months of the season I mainly target barbel, after work during short evening sessions.  To get the best out of these sessions you have to be prepared, efficient and have your tactics ready to employ quickly and confidently.  I shall explain how I do this, which should give you a basis of knowledge to help you get the best from your local rivers. River & Swim Selection First you need a venue within easy driving distance of work/home.  I finish work at 6pm, so for evening sessions I set myself a limit of 45 minutes driving time each way.  Research which local angling clubs offer you the best river fishing to suit …

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It’s a now a month since the rivers closed and I’m just getting around to typing up my ‘end of season round-up’ post.  I don’t think I’ve fully grasped the concept of a blog!  Well, better late than never, I suppose… Somehow I’ve managed to once again have a poor end to the season.  What’s made this one different to previous seasons is that it followed a poor middle of the season and a disappointing start to the season too!Okay, so I haven’t had as many hours on the bank since November as I wanted, but the efforts I did make had brought me “0” fish on the bank since November too!  A few evening sessions fishing for zander, a few of the same after barbel (in seemingly ideal conditions, too) and an all-day chub session all resulted in a single half-hearted bite and no fish hooked or landed. In February I escaped the horrendous floods by heading to a canal which manages to remain clear no matter what the conditions.  It was a slow day during which I fished static deadbaits, wobbled deadbaits and lures, which all generated very little interest.  Finally a float-legered sardine I’d cast tight to a …

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New Years resolution:  Update my blog more regularly! Three-quarters of the river season has already flown by since I last wrote, which is extremely slack of me, but hopefully there are still a few people out there interested in reading, so I’ll update on how my Summer fishing went and then I plan to do a small post on what I’ve done since (unfortunately not many fish to write about since November!), by which point I should be back in the habit of writing on here more regularly. The good news is that the fishing I did over the Summer was generally excellent!  I concentrated on a single river, the Derbyshire Derwent, and on a single species, Barbel. The regular rain certainly helped this Summer, keeping the levels topped up and keeping the barbel feeding confidently.  So many times in the past 4 or 5 seasons, I’ve heard anglers moaning – on the bank and on the internet – about the low river levels making barbel fishing difficult.  Personally, I never moaned because I still managed to find a good few fish, but I must say that sport was definitely better this season with a bit of extra water and …

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Although I caught my first barbel from the Trent and my second came from the Derwent, my third and probably the next forty-odd were all River Dove barbel. It’s the place I spent my most formative barbel angling years to date and it’s a river which, although a tough nut to crack at times, I will always hold dear when it comes to summer barbel fishing. The beauty of the river certainly helps; it abounds with wildlife and the combination of gravel runs, streamer weed, gnarled overhanging trees and numerous intriguing twists and turns, make the Dove constantly fascinating. It’s a special river. Andrew’s rods await the interests of a Barbel at sunset on the River Dove I’ve held various tickets for stretches of the Dove and I’ve had varying results from them. Some stretches hold numbers of fish in the 4lb to 8lb bracket with the odd larger fish; others are more famed for elusive but hefty specimens. Due to struggling early-season on the Trent and Derwent in recent years, I decided to give the Dove a go at a narrow stretch, which happened to be the first I’d fished, back in 2003. This would “ease me in gently”, …

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How great it’s been to sit by a river in this glorious heat to while away an evening or two!  After such a cold, long, snowy winter I’m not really surprised that the extremes of weather have gone full circle and now some of the reservoirs are dangerously empty!  Normally with such dry and bright conditions the fishing is difficult but I’ve either been doing something really right (granted, I have changed a lot of my setup) or I’ve been extremely lucky (or more probably a bit of both) in my first couple of sessions of the season. I fished last Tuesday & Wednesday evenings on the River Dove for my first sessions of the new season and unusually, I managed to hit the ground running!  The first evening I only had a couple of hours fishing because I was so disorganised, I didn’t cast a line until half past 9!  The very first cast I had some tip rattles on my upstream rod which seemed like a bite given by a chub mouthing the bait.  After the bite continuing for a good few seconds I struck but failed to connect.  Next cast, a similar but more forceful bite resulted in a …

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