Autumn Barbel
After a successful end to the last river season, that culminated in the capture of my personal best Barbel of 16.12lb, I have once again been out and about having a go for the larger fish that live in the river – sadly to no avail yet, but all in good time.
As I had been fishing the same stretch of the River Kennet for a while I have built up a good knowledge of where all the deep holes, snags, gravel runs and other features are located, which was perfect to begin how to start a bit of a campaign. It had been a while since I had an opportunity to return to one of my favourite stretches; a bit of river I really enjoy visiting and where I really feel confident whilst fishing.
My plan of attack was to do some quick over night sessions in between finishing work and then starting again in the morning. Each visit being a maximum of 12 hours fishing. I had previously found that pre-baiting really worked in the long run, so I began a short baiting campaign 2 weeks before I intended wetting a line. The idea simply being to get the fish feeding really confidently on the free baits I would be using during my fishing sessions.
I visited the intended swim; that had an overhanging tree on the inside bend with a deep hole underneath it to my left, with a nice steady run directly in front of the swim. Three times each week I delivering 1kg of CC Moores Odyssey XXX over 2 spots in the swim, as well as 2kg of mixed sized halibut pellet soaked in CC Moores Red Venom and Halibut Oil. This was all introduced using a large bait dropper to ensure the bait got down to the river bed and was concentrated around the areas I was hoping to get the Barbel feeding.
On the second week of visiting the river I started to see fish moving over the pre-baited area (BONUS!). Amongst these fish were a number of stretches larger Barbel, one of which looked to be my target fish which would hopefully push the scales over the 17lb mark – maybe even 18lb! To say I was excited was an under stat...
