Blankety blanks

a good looking WA, but threw me a blank

I managed to fit two short(ish) sessions in last weekend, my first trips for a couple of weeks due to the cold snap. Both on the Warks Avon, with the temperature slowly rising, and by Monday evening, the water temperature was back up to an impressive 8.1c, which was a rise of a whole degree on the previous days session.

Unfortunately, no one told the barbel that they were supposed to be feeding, and both sessions proved fruitless.

The second session, on Monday, was on a section of the Lower river that has produced good fish for me before, the one interesting thing about the session though was that the angler at the downstream end of the stretch hooked a catfish, which he had on for more than an hour. I stood behind him for a while, and the guy just simply couldn't do anything with the fish at all, it certainly wasn't a barbel, nor a carp, so a big moggy was all it could be. I knew they were there, but that's the first time I've ever seen one hooked!

It's bloody freezing!

Been a while since my last post on here now, and this is a very quick update. At present, there's snow on the ground, and the temperature is around 2c, with water temps on our rivers somewhere between 4-5c, so not conducive to barbel fishing at all. I'm not sure when my next trip will be, but it won't be until we have a marked rise in temperatures.

A fine 11.15

The last two months, and December in particular, have been good to me however, and my seasons tally of doubles now stand at six! All of these fish have been Warks Avon specimens, the Severn is still not keen to offer me any of her doubles. The best of these was an 11.15 I took on a boilie at Fladbury, but I also had a 10.15, and a 10.3 from the same venue. The temps in December were quite incredible, some days touching 15c, with water temps up in double figures, quite something. Since then though, things have settled to more normal winter temps, but I'm hoping February will have something more to offer.

Ive got the last two weeks of the season off work, so hopefully some big fat backend barbel will grace my landing net. At least, that's the plan.