My car was in for its MOT today at 8 o'clock. So with the day off work, I decided to make the most of it and fish the weir. It was going to be a cold one but I wrapped up warm and wore my new Skeetex boots for the first time so it never felt too bad, but I had a feeling the fishing might be difficult. I set myself a reasonable target of 3 Chub, not expecting much that would have been enough for me at this time of year. The river wasn't too low at the weir, though the other stretches looked it, and it was quite clear but with a lot of 'foam' on the top. The sun never really raised its head throughout the day either which probably helped.
I was set up around 830 and fished through to 315 when it was time to go and pick up my car. Armed with a 1.25lb Greys TXL Rod, 4000 Shimano DL Bait Runner loaded with 6lb Korum Expert line to an 0.16 Stroft hooklength and size 14 Drennan Wide Gape Match hook, I fished a 50g Black Cap maggot feeder and bunches of maggot on the hook. So my usual tactics and here's a video of my peg, my usual cotch now, the downstream peg of 2...
View attachment IMG_9126.m4v
Expecting it to be fairly instantaneous with the Chub, I got a bite on around the 4th cast and a small 2lb Chub was in the net.
Actually it fought quite well, started off as though the feeder was slightly snagged but pulled itself free and I said to myself "this must be a Barbel".
Not a bad start really. It usually starts fairly instant and then tails off but at least I hadn't blanked.
About 20 minutes later I had another bite. This time I said to myself "this must be a Chub". Shows how much I know as it turned out to be a hard fighting Perch around 1lb.
About 50 minutes later I poured myself a coffee and looked down for a second to put the cup down, and when I looked back up, the butt of my rod was in the air and heading downstream. This time I got it right when I said to myself, "this must be a Barbel". A fairly short but good fight later (I love playing fish in running water, especially this snaggy peg) and a 4lb Barbel was in the net.
I now had 3 fish, which was my target and one of them was a much appreciated Barbel, so I was quite happy, but it went quiet as expected after this fish. I was still get lots of little dinks and odd liners which kept my interest, I was sure there were still a few fish milling about, but it wasn't until 13:40 I hit another bite and it turned out to be a small Chub of maybe 12oz.
I fished on until it was time to go and pick up my car, still hoping for another 3ft twitch, but it never materialised. Decent bite on what turned out to be my penultimate cast but no more fish. So all in all quite pleased, the Barbel made the day really, and my car has passed its MOT having only failed on a brake light and a bush which have been sorted out now.
