A couple after the heat

 23/07/22

Straight to the river after my last shift of a 60hr week, half a can of Redbull on the way, the other half for the drive home. I was parked up by 23:00hrs and fishing by 23:45hrs. A 2lb chub from the near margin hung itself on the first cast and caused some disturbance so I moved across to the far bank for the next cast. Things were very quiet until just before 01:00hrs when the rod hooped over. 

8.01lb

The fish put up a really dogged fight, I thought that it was the double I'm after from this river but it was some way off. I stuck it out until after first light but didn't get any further interest.

30/07/22

Another flying visit after work. 

I had my gear in the car for 3 days in a row but was finishing a bit too late to be heading to the river. In the past, I was happy going straight from work even if it was just for an hour of fishing but with the ridiculous price of diesel, I now have a self-imposed limit, a minimum of 3hrs fishing.

I was fishing by 22:40hrs and had 2 chub in the first 2 casts, decent fish of roughly 3.5lb & 4.5lb. Again it wasn't until roughly 01:00hrs (a key time so far on this stretch) when I got some interest from a barbel, again another solid fight to get the fish past the mid-river weed beds then a battle to keep it from finding the tree roots in the undercut bank.

A solid fish, I was sure this was a repeat capture but after checking it against previous captures it wasn't. 

9.03lb - my 3rd '9' from this stretch so this season, all different fish

 As the end of my 3 hours approached I started getting some more interest, probably chub but I had to give it another 10 minutes before leaving.... 

Just a small one this time, but every barbel from this river is a worthy capture

2 decent chub and 2 barbel from a difficult river on a short session, very pleased.

A couple before the heat

 13/07/22

A session straight from work, clocking out at 21:58hrs, a quick coffee followed by a 45-minute drive and I was fishing by 23:15hrs. Similar conditions to recent sessions, clear skies, relatively warm, with 5-6ft of moderately fast walking pace water in front of me. A bit of bait was immediately thrown into the margin and towards the far bank willows, which was left undisturbed for a while whilst I set up in the dark.

Chub knocks almost instantly, despite sitting on my hands and ignoring the rod tip for as long as possible I hooked a small (2.5lb) chub, which was a bit of a swim wrecker as I didn't get a touch for almost an hour afterwards. A barbel provided the next action, a really hard unusual fight as the barbel surfaced almost immediately and stayed on the surface for the duration of the battle. 

8.01lb of hard-fighting northern river barbel

I should have headed home straight after that fish as the commotion had almost certainly scared everything in the surrounding area off. However I had one further take as I was about to leave, a 'proper' barbel take, which turned out to be a decent chub of 4.07lb

  15/07/22

Again straight from work and fishing by 23:45hrs, it was my last shift for 3 days so I could stay for as long as I could keep myself awake. Exactly the same approach as my previous sessions (it's working, why change it?!) on this stretch, a couple of balls of soaked pellet/ crushed boilie into areas on the near and far bank, with a single rod, casting in turn to each area, every 30 mins or so.

Without warning the rod hooped round just before 01:00 and a really aggressive fight developed.

Eventually, a nice barbel of 8.11 was landed, however that was it for the night. The only knocks on the rod tip were caused by the odd bat hunting moths which were attracted to the bright isotope. After first light, I recced a few more areas for future sessions and threw all the bait I had with me in as I knew I wouldn't be fishing for a while with the forecasted temperatures looking ridiculous for the UK.