A taste for my salami sandwich...

I was travelling north after a morning spent working in West Yorkshire, and decided to park up at a spot to eat my lunch and spot some fish. Naturally I chucked in some samples of my salami sandwich which was taken by a big set of rubber lips - game on, time to get my rod out the boot!

I only had twenty minutes, so I got down o the bank and hooked a big chunk of salami sandwich, flicked it out (free lined) and watched it gradually sink and flow to the waiting mouth, which moved to intercept the bait...all to easy this I thought! It was just about to open wide when a 1lb brownie shot out and grabbed it! Blooming thing ruined my chances with the chub!

Ah well can't win them all, I though - back to work! 

The start of this seasons challenge for an upper river barbel...

I Decided to start my challenge for this year, hunting down a barbel on the upper river river. This high up, im told, you got one barbel for every ten you get on the lower or middle reaches. If i get one i'll be over the moon!

Arrived today with the river at normal summer level, and decided to try a nice deep glide that came after to shallow rapids. A two rod approach, one with pellet and the other a big bunch of maggots with a swimfeeder.

First chuck in and the maggot rod was soon bouncing, this lively trout put up a short but spirited fight.

I recast regularly, topping up the swim and hoping to draw any chub or barbel in. The rod slammed down again, and it felt a good fish, but it was a grayling holding its dorsal against the flow (they do fight well size for size!). At 1lb 5oz, this beats my pb by 2oz...

Nothing happening on the pellet, but I felt that there may come a time when a barbel swam through, so plugged on with that. The maggot rod was away again, a small trout...

And that was it, no more bites for the next couple of hours until i called it a morning. Lovely place to be, i saw three kingfishers, and plenty of other wildlife. I'll keep trying the upper swale, one day i may just get a barbel...

A good chub to kick off my season...

I left home today without a destination in mind, but finally decided on a stretch of the river. I knew it was low and clear, but i have my barbel glasses on, even though the chances were slim. I decided to go for the two rod approach, both cast to spots under or adjacent snags where i thought they would be hiding. One rod had hair rigged sweetcorn, with a bed of hemp and the other used a pellet approach.

Within ten minutes the seetcorn rod flew over and i was into a fish, my first of the season, and a pleasing 4lb 12oz chub. In winter condition it would have probably been my first 5lber but I cant be dissapointed with that. 

I spent a good few hours more until 4pm, changing tactics, baits and trying to stalk a couple of chub that i found but with no success. 

Happy with that though, back out at the weekend.