Session 45 – Perch And Barbel

Friday 18th September, and I headed, accompanied by Liz this time, back to the tench/silvers pool. Setting off a little later than usual due to Liz having an early morning appointment with the doctor to attend and this, plus the off-to-work traffic, meant that we arrived at the pool at around 0945. However, even at this time of day, we were the only people there then although later in the day three more cars arrived but even then the anglers were intending fishing the adjoining carp/chub pool.

All-in-all it was a glorious day, warm with sunshine, despite two or three short showers around 1430 onwards…

We set up around our usual area albeit not in our usual swims… and as it was a breeze free day with the water surface perfectly calm, as can be seen in the photo above, we both chose to float fish using the laying-on method.

For baits I started off using maggot and/or worm on a size 12 hook and Liz used maggot and sweetcorn on a 16…

I was getting small knocks to start with but no bites of substance and so eventually I changed down to a size 16 hook with 2 or 3 maggots as bait which started to catch – but only small perch of up to 2-3oz until I had a barbel of 2lb 5oz (my best barbel from this venue).

However, next cast after landing the barbel I over-did it and the line/float ended up in the brambles on the island against which I was fishing – and stayed there when the line parted on trying to recover them…. and so I took the opportunity of the clean slate to re-tackle with a lighter waggler float with the bait fished on the drop… and I started to catch at a greater rate albeit only more small perch…

Liz managed one small perch, and literally within 2 minutes of the landing of my barbel, she too landed a barbel of 1lb 9oz which she thought was a new PB for her – but checking the records since it seems that she had a 1lb 14oz from the same venue last year…

End of the day tally was 20 small perch and the 1 barbel to me, 1 perch and 1 barbel for Liz when we packed up at 1630, tackled down and headed to the Beacon Hotel for well needed pints of Sarah Hughes’ finest ales…