Van was loaded and I was away from home at 4am , on arriving at the river at 5am the anglers who were there already were obviously still fast asleep . I parked up and walked down to where Jon was bivvied up and sending out zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's on having a look near him there was no swim available so back to van and drop in another one . Got the bivvy up and everything out of van and the rain started , everything was thrown either back in to the van or the bivvy and I retreated inside , the wind was all over the place and at one point blowing straight into bivvy so door went down and I sat waiting for a break . Now an hour later and getting hungry I decided to break my own rule and got the stove going and the bacon and sausage was in the pan at this point the sun came out and the temp in the bivvy went mental .
I plated this up and moved stove outside and picked up the butty and wondered down to see Mick the bailiff who had the kettle on and knocked me a brew up . After catching up with a few of the guys and Mr Preen , I got my lead rod out and checked the river bed and discovered last years floods had changed the make of it and finally found some gravel , got the rods set up and marked up for the spot and then settled down and relax and await midnight . Now the far bank is a day ticket stretch and it was lined with anglers in fact there was double the amount of anglers to swims which pointed towards a tough start .
Midnight came and the Rioja was opened and the toast for a good season made , now on my bank we started at midnight as we should however the other bank casts were made from around 10pm !!!!!
The first cast was made and the waiting game started , now due to the amount of bait put in by anglers opposite I decided to just feed through the feeder on one rod and straight lead on the other . Casting the feeder every 20 mins for the first 3 hours and then every half hour after that resulted in nothing at all . There was one bream caught on the far bank was greeted with masses of head torches running up to see a fish !!!! report from Jon's end was much the same though he had managed to take a couple of barbel and bream but there was no anglers opposite him . At 7am my first fish of the season arrived an eel of 1lb 12oz.
As anglers left the opposite bank and others took their place no more action was forth coming . Then my wife Lou arrived with out mental dog Dizzy which broke things up a bit and then out of the blue one of my rods ripped off and my first barbel of the season slipped into the net at 6lb 8oz .
The next 24 hours resulted in nothing and as calls were made it was becoming clear the river was fishing in patches as angler reported either nothing or some catching multiple barbel and chub . A swim became available next to Jon and when I'm bivvied up fully I tend not to move but thought may as well move and have a social for the last 24 hours so loaded the van and drove down , as the weather had now decided to behave I set up my stormshield brolly and packed my bivvy and non essentials away .
I got the lead rod out and found a small gravel patch on the far bank and put a few bait droppers of bait on it . Jon's dad and stepmum turned up at this point to see him so took myself off to see them and had a chat and a drink . After they left I put my rods out and soon had a bream of 6lb
This was soon followed by my first chub of the season at 4lb 14oz
And as the sunset hopes of a barbel or 2 was awaited
Unfortunately no action occurred and as the weather went hot and sunny I decided to call an end to the opening session has had to get home put my gear away and get ready for a couple of days at work .
My next session was planned as an after work overnighter , now having spoke to a few anglers I decided to try fishing maggots so purchased some from my local shop , now when I go in and the guy says when are you going I know they aint fresh but as I didnt want to detour to bait farm when I finished work I took the plunge . Van loaded off to work I went at 5am and on my 2pm finish shot home checked on dizzy then off to river , now I had planned to try the tidal but arrived to find most swims taken and no one catching so raced backed to middle and just as pulled up at the swim I fancied the heavens opened , oh well soon pass as it was showers only . half hour later and still throwing it down , no bivvy just the brolly again so dived out of van and grabbed brolly and had just about got it up when Mr Barbel himself Wayne Glossop rang me , now this is where things started to go wrong , the maggots had been in a bucket and bounced down several lanes with out a problem so when the phone went the bag with the pegs for the brolly were thrown in the van the door shut and I sat under half erected brolly . 15 mins later and call ends and return to van to get pegs and discover I had managed to hit the bucket with the maggots in and knocked it over !!!!!!! all 4 pints of maggots were now trying to find hiding places in the floor of the van , nothing for it but empty van and clear carpet and mats out and retrieve the escapees , think I found about 3 and a half pints but 10 days and some hot weather later there is no sign of the flies . . Fishing wise it was poor , 1 eel of 1lb 6oz , 2 roach around 6oz each ,2 small perch , 1 hybrid of around 1lb that looked battered and 12 small bream with biggest going around 4lb .Ok I typed that last night and got up this morning and there was one bluebottle flying round the van now when I came out of work 9 hours later and approached the van it became apparent that all was not well as there was about 50 bluebottles all over the windows !!! so opened them and left it for a few mins while they vacated the cab , no driving home more appeared and flew out the windows , looking in the rear view mirror and back window had a few on it so when I got home all the doors were opened and left . I have been out 3 times since opening all the doors and they are still appearing !!!!
For my next session I went to the tidal and made sure I got a decent swim by arriving at 4am as I was only fishing til 4pm due to work . Now had been warned it was fishing tough and not producing during the day so when at the bottom of the tide at 6.30am one of the Delkims sang its tune I was more than happy to slip a barbel of 6lb 1oz onto the scales .
This broke the hoodoo of the Angling Anarchy hoodie
Things then went a little quiet until the bottom of the tide when in the space of 40 minutes I landed 3 barbel of 2lb 6oz , 5lb 10oz and 4lb
My swim was very comfortable and the early start was taking its toll which wasnt good given I wanted to work the swim , I was kept alert by frequent visits from damsel flies
Just as I was starting the pack up I had a fish on each rod which resulted in a 2lb bream and a 2lb 10oz barbel .
The surprising thing about this session was in all the sessions I fished on this particular stretch of the Tidal last year I only had barbel under 7lb , good news for the future but a puzzle for now .
My last session to bring things up to date was again on the Tidal Trent and involved fishing 4pm til 8am the following morning . On arriving I discovered my 2 first fancied swims taken one of which had Jon Preen on it , the one I settled on I had fished twice previous but not been on since New Years Eve 2011 . Now having spoke to a few who had fished this swim since the season opened the result was that no one had even had a bite off it !!!! but nothing ventured nothing gained . The river was very low and clear and while leading around I found some nice gravel and on my last retrieve I had a perch of around 2lb follow the lead !!!!! .
I decided to go with normal tactic of not putting a bed of bait down but just put bait in through the feeder and build it slowly .
Low and clear and looks like the sky is in the river !!!!
On my first retrieve of the downstream rod a jack pike of around 4lb grabbed my feeder unfortunately it spat the feeder out at the net . After around 2 hours I got some silly taps on the upstream rod and the feeder started to roll and I lifted into what I thought was a small bream but after getting me snagged and freeing it with the fish still attached it turned into either a small barbel or an average chub and then for no apparent reason it came off , gutted doesnt come close as the way the river was fishing that could be my only chance . Despite be careful with my casting and about how much bait I was putting in nothing was forth coming and so on sunset I was still fishless and had seen no other sign .
As darkness fell fish began moving and showing along the far bank including my first ever seas trout bouncing up stream but still no action . I remained biteless til 3.10am when out of the blue I was attached to a very angry barbel which pulled the scales to 9lb 6oz and my biggest of the season so far
Half an hour later and I hook and land another barbel of 6lb 7oz
And finally at 4.15am I had my last fish of the session of 7lb 5oz
While that was the last of the action I watched a nice sunrise develop
And that brings me upto date and as I type this we have just had 4 scorching hot days that has seen everyone who has been out struggle for bites but may mean the fish have finally got their spawning out of the way . I'm hoping to have a short after work session in a couple of days but will be trying something different to tempt a fish or 2 .
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