Woke up to heavy rain and the worst thing is packing up wet gear when it's pissing down! : (
Good news is there's rain forecast for several days except Friday. That means it will fish it's bollocks off when it is on the rise with coloured water in it.
This has been my hardest session of the four recent trips I've fished here. First night I had 2 barbel, 1 I weighed, bang on 9lb. The other of similar size, maybe slightly bigger. Couldn't weigh it as my digital scales had condensation so couldn't see any display. 3 anglers(locals) nearest to me had one barbel each, biggest around 7lb so I'm more than holding my own on a very pressurised stretch, so I'm pleased about that.
Fished all day yesterday without even a bleep on the alarms. Thought I'd go shit or bust for a big barbel so put 2 18mm boilies on the bottom rod with crushed boilie and glugged pellets in a PVA bag. Several hours of recasting and still no bites. Had some supper and recast about 10pm and settled down in bed, hoping for one of my rods to scream off between 11 and 1am as this is normally a productive time to catch.
My bottom rod bleeped once, then another bleep and then a few slow bleep bleeps. I whipped my shoes on and head-torch hoping grandad whiskers had snaffled my 2 boilies. Struck into the fish and the rod arched round nicely, yes!. But I soon realised I'd been had by an eyes bigger than belly greedy bastard 3lb bream. Came in like a wet rag. I don't think the guy directly opposite me on Winthorpe helped my cause. The cheeky bastard cast over half way across river into my swim several times throughout the night, not proper angling etiquette IMO.
I first started match fishing the Trent as kid in the mid 70s when almost every peg was chockablock with silverfish. I pleasure fished it throughout the 80s and early 90s with my mates, big bags of chub roach and bream common place. Then marriage kids and work got in the way, and until recently I haven't fished on here for at least 5 years, but there's something magical to me about this mighty River, and part of that is it has specimen fish of almost every species. Plus it's the best river to catch a magical double figure barbel from. With all the high protein bait going in they are piling weight on year on year, unlike the 80s and 90s when a double figure fish was a very rare catch.
One thing I have learned on this river is to be friendly towards other anglers, especially ITK locals as several have given me valuable information on good swims, different stretches, baits and methods to use. It's not easy fishing on here much of the time because it's pressured and specimen fish have become wise to bait and tactics. But with the river about to rise it could and should fish really well. I'm hoping I can get back on here soon whilst it has extra coloured water on....