Time for a cuppa! I’ve just spent two hours choosing half a dozen swims and carefully baiting them. The heat of the day has gone but the evening ahead should still be warm enough for me not to need a coat.
The river here varies between 15 and 25 yards wide at a guess and I’m pretty much spoilt for choice when it comes to swims. The overhanging bushes are obvious starting points as is the deep margin on the tight bend, there’s a bit of a gulley between those two banks of streamer weed and of course there’s that tasty looking swim just before the rapids where the river shallows up and the pace increases.
The depth along most of this stretch is such that I can’t clearly see the fish I’m after so fishing for them is a leap of faith to some extent so I’m using watercraft to predict spots where, if I was a barbel, that’s where I’d want to be.
The trouble is every swim looks so horny but experience has taught me that they don’t all contain fish. Well, not all the time. You see, the fish tend to roam around, laying up in inaccessible places until hunger gets the better of them. Then they’ll go exploring, stopping off for a snack here and there. A swim that is empty right now might easily hold fish later and vice versa.
Adopting a roving approach when barbel fishing is a simple way of maximising the number of fish you catch in a short session but it requires a degree of discipline. I spend as much time, probably more when I think about it, preparing swims rather than fishing them.
Pick Your Time
It helps if you know your river and you do need a bit of space to work in. It’s not the sort of thing you try on a sunny Sunday morning in the school holidays right next to the car park. Be prepared to walk, fish in bad weather and midweek evenings are obviously a better bet than weekends.
How would I feel if the boot was on the other foot?
It also helps to concentrate on half a dozen spots that aren’t too far apart or you’ll end up shattered. You can’t physically manage more than six and I’m quite happy to fish as few as four.
Having chosen my swims I’ll wander between them introducing some feed. All I’m hoping to do is intercept and occupy a fish, or a group of fish, until I get around to fishing the swim.
Small particles, small pellets, corn, chopped boilies or finely chopped meat are the ideal choices as they give off lots of attraction while neither filling up the fish nor getting mopped up too quickly. Introduce six boilies and a single fish could eat them all and be gone in seconds. Chuck in a handful of particles and the same fish might be occupied for an hour or more.
A bait dropper is an essential toolbecause it allows me to bait accurately but it can be too precise. I want a liberal spread of bait in the swim so a fish will remain occupied for quite a while so I might introduce three or four droppers, spread a few feet apart, followed by a pouch of hemp so this scatters around the same area.
Putting in bait with a catapult is more accurate than throwing it in by hand unless the swim is very close to the near bank but don’t mix the feed in your bucket. Put hemp, different sized pellets, boilies or whatever in separately. If you fire them out in the same catapult you’ll find the heaviest baits go further and the lighter ones drop short which defeats the object somewhat.
Mind you, in saying all this, there’s no better bait combination for this hit and run style fishing than hemp and casters – providing you can afford them!
Feeding
By the time I’ve baited a second time I realise I’ve already been on the bank for the best part of two hours without wetting a line. Time for that drink. I’ll take my time now to tackle up – one rod. I’ll check every knot, the hook point, my reel line, the reel’s drag setting – everything. Then I’ll check it again.
Tension mounts. I’m absolutely confident that the first fish of the day will shortly be hooked. Easing myself quietly into the upstream swim I gently swing out the rig. It settles, the line draws tight. My rod is pointing directly at the lead, line held between thumb and first finger. I’m feeling for anything, any sign that a fish is in the swim.
Was that a slight pluck? A line bite? Or maybe it was a bit of debris catching the line. Don’t strike!
There, it happened again. I’m now oblivious to my surroundings, the skylark is lost, the distant drone of traffic and children playing in the village. It’s just me, my senses and a few millimetres of line on the nerve endings in my fingertips.
Suddenly all hell lets loose. The rod’s hoped over and I’m playing a fish. I don’t remember the sudden pull or even striking. Everything happened in the blink of an eye while I was on complete autopilot.
Hang on tight, whack the rod over to the left and keep it as low as the vegetation will allow. It’s stalemate for a while as the rod absorbs a series of savage lunges and then she’s coming towards me. The battle will be fast, it will be furious and it will be brought to a swift conclusion.
The fish is netted, carried a short way upstream, nursed and released, none the worse for an experience that gave me so much pleasure.
Two more droppers of bait go in to top up the swim and I wander down to my second swim.
I need a heavier lead but the quick change attachment means I can do it in seconds. Again I swing out the rig and wait, nerves jangling, adrenalin pumping.
Minutes pass. I consider a recast but stop myself. There was nothing wrong with the first cast so why create unnecessary disturbance. I sit tight for another five minutes. Nothing materialises and I decide to cut my losses and move down to swim three. I do not introduce any more bait. There is nothing happening to suggest the bait I have already introduced has been eaten.
Swim three is shallower and I see a barbel flash. There are feeding fish in the swim and I need to be very cautious. Using the lightest lead I can reach with I cast beyond the baited area and let the current pull the rig round on a tight line and then release it as it comes over the area I want it to lie.
I can feel the lead settle, and hold – hang on it trundled across the gravel then – I can actually feel it go tap-tap, and then it stops, probably against a bit of weed or a stone. Perfect. I know a bite is going to follow and it’s going to come pretty soon.
Bang! We’re in again!
I’m sure you’ve got the picture now. Bait carefully, think about what and how much you are going to use. Be stealthy and keep things as simple as possible.
When I’ve completed the circuit, I’ll go back to the first swim and repeat the process. Two cycles will take me the better part of three hours by which time it’ll be dark. Time flies and I’ll only have had a bait in the water for a fraction of the time I’ve been on the bank but every second it was in there I was in with a very good chance of hooking into a fish.
Fishing like this is absorbing, exhilarating and shattering. I’ll sleep contentedly tonight.
Rig suggestions
Light feeder rig
Simple semi-fixed rig employing a leadcore leader (see photo sequence)
Tackle Recommendations:
Rod – dependant to some extent upon the size of fish you are targeting but a general guide would be that you use a 1.5 to 1.75lb test curve rod with a minimum 6lb line, ideally 8 or even 10lb.
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