Tuesday 29 September 2009

Fishy Picture Post - a Barbel from the Avon

Kate has kindly sent over the pictures of our camping trip to Anchor Meadow on the Warwickshire Avon last month. I lost a big fish at tea time Saturday and later caught my best ever barbel and what follows are the pictures that tell the story!
Kate is a pro photographer ( you can find her here if you should need her sterling services) and had the camera handy when the fish arrived at midnight, disconcertingly she was firing off without flashgun! No problem I was told, and no problem was what it turned out to be; this particular camera can see in the dark!


After losing a big barbel...


We decide to go all out for them in the evening!


Kev...


and me...


and Molly!


Tea time over, I retrieve the bottle of bubbly I lashed to some staging with a spare guy rope and stashed in the river to keep cool, earlier in the day...


I decide to end my big fish hex by firing the cork into the stream!


It flies right out to the middle, and is washed away to sea...


but there's one more thing to do...


A libation...!


to the gods of the river!!!


It's serious business now...


watching for bites...


casting here and there...


and hitting the right spot!


Was that a knock?


Fish on!!


whaaahooo!


in the net..


a nine pound barbel!


Do I look happy?..


you bet I do, 'cause I am !!!


hex gone, fish returned, it's time for a fag...


it was this big!


Next morning, Kev with a baby barbel, his first ever..


And a nice roach to finish with!

No bites after this, the rain came, the river flooded over its banks, peaked, began to fall off, and the fish, well they went somewhere I cannot fathom...

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