After years of dragging me round to fish just about every mill on the Warwickshire Avon but failing to find his thrill, at a new venue to both of us, Mr Martin Roberts finally cracked his long-standing 11lb personal best for barbel this evening with a specimen weighing in at an impressive 13lb 5oz, and so monumental in the flesh it could have been a Rodin bronze.
My efforts don't even warrant mention alongside his achievement and for once I won't bore you with the minutiae of them but just showcase a glorious fish and one very happy man.
Believe me when I say that it's very hard to get Martin to smile in a picture.
But for once it was all too easy...
You couldn't have wiped it off with hammer and chisel!
Catching chub on trotted maggots and trundled meat respectively but singularly failing to lure even a small one between us in long hours searching every likely looking lie, when we'd exhausted every last try, Steve and myself together agreed at a certain angling moment around 4pm that we'd now reached a watershed when a move really was necessary or in our quest for barbel we'd die on our sodden arses.
It had to be to another fishery entirely because by then we both knew this one to be a lost cause.
Making phone calls to friends he came up with a solution when pointed downstream to where they'd 'certainly' be found. First of all we had to find the place — and you'd never know it was there if you didn't have the information and was tricky to find even with it. A very steep hill to amble down and then likely swims to locate— a tall order on a stretch that looked at first sight pretty much the same all the way along.
Evenly wide, shallow and slow-moving there was little recommending one over any other, but working on pointed info gleaned from Steve's very generous tipsters then all what we had to do was 'walk to a certain point, cast right across, fish as close as possible to the far bank bushes and preferably right in them.'
Then, when we eventually found the spot, seriously, it looked no different than any other we'd passed by already...
Steve donned his waders but I couldn't be bothered with that sweaty faff having worn them all day long and choosing to fish from the bank I left them to dry on the grass behind.
That gave Steve a clear advantage when it came to getting baits into position shortening the chuck by half, where I put myself at a major disadvantage by attempting to do the same from a distance of 60 or 70 yards which is not an easy thing with a cage feeder carrying nothing.
Falling a good twenty yards short I got a bites on meat, but when one was hooked it proved to be a very tricky 2lb eel who escaped the rim of the net by an inch of tail six times before I finally got it in. It was cleanly hooked in the lip (nice of it to be so obliging!) but off the hook it then escaped through a hole so small only a dace could have got through, but he managed it and slivered rapidly back to the water.
Steve had an early chub but of barbel there was no sign yet. Our cheerful bailiff assured us that when the sun set behind the hill and its shadow was cast upon the water, they'd come on the feed. He was dead right about that because just as soon as it did, Steve was into what we'd come for — a barbel.
At last!
His bait was a boilie. So, I rifled around my bag and found some of my own. But they didn't work at all with not a single bite in an hour. When Steve then hooked his second and then third barbel I borrowed a handful of his magic bait (as you do!) and went back to fish more hopefully but fully aware that I was looking at a blank.
Just as soon as it hit the deck there was a pluck. Ooh — a blank maybe not!
A few cagey plucks later the cage feeder was replaced with a big fat two-ounce maggot feeder stuffed with crushed boilies and that missile was was easily flung within five yards of the trees. The rod sat still for two minutes, no more, before a twang and then a massive wrenching bite set me upon my feet, attached at last...
... and to what felt like a train.
No way was I going to land this fish easily from my position with it now heading downstream hard and determinedly Steve's way, so of course into the water I went in rolled up trousers wading out to an altogether better fighting stance.
Then Steve had another fish on. Two's up was too good a chance to miss because here was a top notch photo in the making, so all we had to do was lose neither and it was in the bag. But I thought I would lose mine. This fish was crazy! Convinced I'd a double to contend with, I played it as safe as I could. But when I finally saw the bruiser was not quite the brute it'd made itself out, I piled on the pressure and finally, after a lot of vicious runs and a splashy finale, netted it. Four pounds or so, it was just a puppy, but blimey could it pull...
Well, we got the picture! And by the end of play we'd have a few more because on the magic boilies barbel were hooked and beaten again and again, Steve finishing up with six or seven before bites dried up completely as darkness approached. Myself fishing bank-side lazy style but having to get in the water anyhow, just a few between. Steve won the pot hands down. A hard-earned and well-deserved result at mate's rates.
And then it was homeward bound but not before that bloody hill was struggled back up weighed down with waders I never used but really think I should have.
Having set my heart and mind on a quest to understand the full gamut of possibilities offered by various forms and styles of trotting bait, I've decided to run a series of case studies that might be of use as notes to myself and a more thought provoking technical study to other anglers than my run-of-the-mill diary style posts. I want to look at the subject in-depth, think critically about the problems encountered, write up what I've learned about a range of different venues, the different approaches necessary to get the best from them and cover as full a spectrum of species as possible, from barbel and chub, to dace, roach, perch, grayling and trout. And if I get the time to try, perhaps pike and zander too.
In short — if trotting will catch it, I'll try for it, and then I'll write about it.
A Case of the Trots — Barbel and Chub on the Warwickshire Avon
There'd been thunderstorms in the north of the catchment the previous day. The Sowe in Longford Park burst its banks for a short time, one of its culverted tributaries popped manhole covers flooding residential streets and when we left for Harvington levels were falling but the water still well-coloured from arable land run off. I hoped the storms had not affected tributaries in the rest of the catchment quite so badly because if they had I'd not be getting any trotting done and would be confined to rods-up close-in styles of fishing.
Thursday afternoon with temperatures peaking at a stifling 34 degrees we arrived at the main river 40 miles downstream (as the duck swims!) where it was clear that the effect was minimal and though levels had risen in the meantime and spiked a couple of feet up on normal summer levels, they'd fallen back quickly once the brief torrent from the relatively small catchment sector that had been affected had passed through. In short, it looked just perfect for my intentions next day.
First thing on an overcast Friday morning donning waders and armed with the fourteen footer, nets and a couple of pints of maggots in the bait pouch I got into position at the head of the relatively shallow medium-paced approach to the weir. Catches were predictably of dace, small roach and gudgeon but I hoped to build the swim and get chub and barbel feeding eventually. That never happened. A few chub did put in an appearance after an hour or so and even a one-pound perch who gave a fabulous account of itself, but really, I think the loose feed was devoured mostly by minnows who occasionally hung themselves on the size-fourteen and little of it reached bottom.
Plan 1 fail!
Plan 2 — get into the weir run off and see what results a lump of trotted meat might bring.
This was a new experience to me. I've never before in my life fished meat in motion, always using it as a static bait for the carp, chub and barbel who still adore the nutritious stuff, even if they've learned it usually contains a hook.
And I suppose that's lesson number one.
Here at Harvington the fish populations are pressured in a way they rarely are anywhere else on the Avon. It's enduring popularity as a weekender barbel session destination really has everything to do with the fact that the stretches available do contain large specimens and provide easy access for anglers wanting to turn up and fish for them straight out the back of a van.
I hesitate to caricature modern barbel angling and anglers, but in my experience it's become a 'drive-in Saturday' experience where weekender fair weather anglers wanting nothing more in the way of exertion than pulling up a handbrake, set up stall at whatever free peg is still available mid-morning, cast out baits, fall asleep at the wheel for a couple of days, and mostly blank.
There's not a great deal of original thinking going on. The fish have seen it all before. Static meat is utterly ignored in my experience, and though it'd be the first bait and method I'd choose to use on an under-fished or in the case of the weirs at Lucy's Mill in Stratford, badly fished venue where baits are invariably cast to where anglers hope barbel might be but nowhere near the crucial line where they're actually found, it is the very last bait I'd choose for the place.
When moving though, fish have learned that it's safe. I'm sure every time a piece is tossed out at Harvington then within the half-hour there's a queue of fish sat behind it like dogs at the dinner table all waiting for an impaled crumb to fall from the fork when they pounce on it. It's the same story elsewhere and just a couple of miles upstream I've recently witnessed friends clean up alongside static bank anglers (myself included) by trundling meat through rapid water under the brightest sunlight of mid-afternoon.
It was high time I tried it for myself and this was the ideal opportunity. A bright sunny day, lots of fast water and hopefully fish actively seeking food within it.
First try was the turbulent water immediately beneath the weir and fishing that by standing on the sill itself. Removing the feeder from a barbel rig already made up on the rod I attached a large float to the snap link swivel instead.
This admittedly lazy improvisation nevertheless was effective there. Acting as a heavy waggler it allowing the side-hooked meat (hair-rigged it snagged far too often) to amble about in the eddy currents at will and though it sank from sight at the slightest snag or even when I over-tightened the line, did show when the bait needed to be twitched in order to move it, when I needed to slacken off, and most importantly in the white foam of the weir pool, where it actually was.
Shame I never got a bite there to strike at!
Then a move was made to the run-off and the fast channeled water that flows along the fishery bank. This required wading across to the opposite bank and walking through the shallows there to access the head of the rapid run. It could have been done from the fishery bank, though so many different lines through the flowing weed could never have been explored because limited to one position the current would have drawn the bait inside the main flow to the bank at any distance and into weed on too many.
From the first trial trot down it was clear that the pace was not only very rapid but the float keeping the line at or near the surface had the bait shoot down almost as quickly. In seconds it had travelled ten yards, then twenty and thirty when the rod top banged around and a fish was hooked. A chub of three pounds or so.
I hadn't intended to trot so quickly after that initial run through. It was only a way of gauging current speed and strength and what bulk weight I'd need to control things. I'd intended to weigh the bait down thereafter so it would just trip and then inch it through the swim as you should when 'trundling,' or so I've heard...
But this fish had shot out of its holt and on impulse grabbed a bait moving at five miles per hour. So much for inching. I thought that capture not only remarkable but the technique once discovered well worth persisting with and so I did it again and with equally instant results. As the bait shot down the run instead of watching the float, which was only acting as a visual guide to position and when out of view, weeding, I watched the rod top instead. After a while I took the float off and played without a visual marker noting the pattern of trips and bites as it flew along.
That pattern on a successful run down was a succession of trembles as line trapped under the finger was allowed off the spool, then a pluck or two, a resumption of trembles and then another pluck and a smart and decisive pull as a chasing fish hit the bait hard. In an hour or so I'd chinned out five good-sized chub, lost two more, but had had hundreds of indecisive bites between.
Then on the retrieve with the bait coming upstream and across the top, the rod bucked as a fish took the bait. They'd even take it even when moving in the wrong direction!
Then I realised I had not a chub on the hook but a barbel instead...
Which was pause for thought, because all the bites at speed were clearly from chub with their big front-loader gobs who can chase food head on and pounce on it, where the barbel present hadn't a chance at such pace with their underslung mouths. But here was a barbel who'd taken a relatively slowly moving bait moving counter current right at the surface which must have required the gymnastic feat of turning upside down to do so!
You learn something new every day, don't you? And then you learn it twice because the next fish also took a bait on the retrieve, only this time a chub with its entire right side gill plate missing from birth but breathing perfectly well...
So, if chub will take meat with gusto at high speed, barbel and chub will both take it when going effectively backwards, then that means that two shots are possible and the retrieve itself, usually the end of proceedings with a failed trot, is actually a second and golden opportunity not to be wasted.
But why on earth would they grab a bait acting in a way so unnatural to them?
Well, I suppose it's a food they love and know by sight whenever it comes their way so they pounce in a flash of purely instinctive greed. It comes in cubes which must become an instantly recognisable shape, a knowledge acquired over a lifetime of avoiding similar static ones but devouring any that move, and so they'll have anything similarly shaped before the next fish can whenever it's in range and no matter what it's doing because they can spit it out again if it proves not to be their favourite free meal.
I thought it almost lure fishing for barbel because I've no doubt an artificial lump of meat would have performed in exactly the same way, and that's worth a shot next time around because you do lose an awful lot of meat baits in fast weedy water. And losing my meagre supply proved the end of my session, but not before using up the last remaining cubes in a swirling pool where I saw the unmistakable golden flash of a barbel, and after a few minutes with the bait moving slowly around in the eddy currents, hooked and netted it.
So, in two hours energetic fishing I'd taken more fish than anyone else would on the fishery that day. None were 'specimens' but this series of case studies has nothing whatsoever to do with waiting games and boring out big fish. They are about fishing for its own sake and the enjoyment of being active and successful at it.
The fact that I caught and lost more during those short active hours than the other anglers about the place fishing by rote with static baits under what were hopelessly unsuitable conditions for that strategy, is what matters. They failed because they were bound to. I succeeded because I'm sick to the back teeth of such failure in the pursuit of such small and ultimately ridiculous prizes as personal bests and want positive new experiences as their proper replacement. I went after them and of course I got them never having done it before
A salutary lesson is what it was. That when things are hot and slow on the riverbank, then getting cool and quick at the riverbed is the way forward, I was actually proud of myself getting stuck in and working things out for myself. Not that promoting such a fact is in the best interest of anyone who's learned the truth of it, because an entire weir run off really is a one-man-only wading domain where two anglers in the same pool is a pool of one too many in the way of company.
Then again, the fish I caught weren't so very big so I doubt I'll ever be in fear of encountering that...
Chez us
Conclusions
Whilst not strictly necessary for this fast-paced fishing conducted at almost the speed of the swift current, a float did help with certain crucial aspects of it. Firstly it kept the line floating on the top of the water and secondly it told me when the bait was weeded. That was important in not wasting time on abortive trots with a weeded bait when the consequent belly of line created still pulled line off the spool at the same rate and felt exactly the same as free bait traveling downstream of its own accord. A bubble float may be the full answer because other float forms were far too sensitive to be useful.
The reel used was a fixed-spool one. This was not the ideal choice when a centrepin would have allowed line to peel from the spool in a smooth fashion and without tripping. Retrieve was faster with a fixed spool of course, but, if retrieving slowly also catches fish as was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, then what does that matter?
Chub can and will intercept baits going past at breakneck speed whilst barbel either cannot or will not. Barbel with their small eyes, underslung and relatively small mouths are pure bottom grubbers who require at least some time to make their minds up but given time enough will come up in the water. Chub are mid-water specialists who have big mouths and eyes plus minds that make pure opportunists of them when given as little time as possible to make a decision. A 'little time' with chub and barbel are therefore two very different things.
Time is of the essence. Rivers conditions in fast and shallow water change more rapidly so far as fish are concerned than they do elsewhere — an inch or so of depth and an inch or two of clarity either way making a great deal of difference to them, their perceptions, and therefore their location.
Daytime fishing with static baits is the least productive method possible to employ when the river is low, the day bright.
Where summertime fishing is concerned, angler activity equals angler success
Both species will take a bait moving counter to the current, and if anything was gained by the session that really matters then it was the discovery of this fundamental truth. With chub it may be obvious them being natural born chasers, but to my knowledge, with barbel it's a fact that's never been observed in the entire history of coarse fishing.
Having set my heart and mind on a quest to understand the full gamut of possibilities offered by various forms and styles of trotting bait, I've decided to run a series of case studies that might be of use as notes to myself and a more thought provoking technical study to other anglers than my run-of-the-mill diary style posts. I want to look at the subject in-depth, think critically about the problems encountered, write up what I've learned about a range of different venues, the different approaches necessary to get the best from them and cover as full a spectrum of species as possible, from barbel and chub, to dace, roach, perch, grayling and trout. And if I get the time to try, perhaps pike and zander too.
In short — if trotting will catch it, I'll try for it, and then I'll write about it.
A Case of the Trots — Chub on the Wye With Steve Phillips
The middle Wye was something of a new experience for us both. Strewn with boulders over flat sheets of bedrock, shallow throughout the stretch with few deep pools, rapid water here and there with large areas of almost still water between, the summer river was about as low as it could be and made difficult because of it.
Almost nothing could have been accomplished from our bank because it was clear from the outset that fish were not going to be found within easy reach. We could see bottom all along, there wasn't a fish of any size to be seen anywhere, and water that looked promising was far off and along the far bank.
Wading was essential. It offered the chance to roam at will and cover the entire stretch in search of our quarry, which was ostensibly, barbel. But actually, we'd both agreed after an initial foray into the water itself that we'd catch whatever we could because it looked pretty difficult to locate anything worth catching out there, let alone meet our mission intentions.
We agreed to split and go find interesting areas. Steve sporting a barbel rod and lumps of meat went upstream of our base camp to attempt trundling the bait through whatever flow he could find with enough pace to shift it. He wound up at a natural rock dam where below there was enough power to do that successfully.
I decided to seek fish by way of trotting a single red maggot.
I'd boned up on this technique for barbel by reading an excellent article by Chris Plumb where he states that it might take two hours for them to come on the feed, but when they do the results can be magnificent with fish falling one after the other. Hoping that a similar approach would flush out barbel if they were there to be found, I went off in search of suitable water.
Float chosen for the job
Tackle was a 14ft rod, an ABU 506 closed-face reel, four-pound mainline, a size 18 barbless hook tied to three-pound hook-length fished under a brass-stemmed almost self-cocking Avon float (home-made of course!) requiring just a single AAA bulk shot and a number 6 dropper shot. to dot it down.
An admittedly lightweight set up but one that I hoped would catch almost anything in such clear water but if barbel were found then I'd lose a hook that'd fall out easily if too large for the tackle to handle, would cope with the small ones I expected in such shallow water (though the fight would still be testing!) but if any were found then I'd scale up considerably.
My approach was to find fish, and any fish would do, believing in such low condition they'd be concentrated in certain places. That was to be the case, though it took some time to prove it. Actually it took a couple of hours to find anything better than minnows! On a break whilst sitting on a flat rock below a second natural dam downstream from Steve's position, a fish topped in the fast water below. Certain it was a trout I went and fished after it.
It was a trout, or rather it was one of a number of trout parr. A good few were caught but they fought too hard and were exhausted by it, turning belly up on release. They recovered when I held them headfirst into the flow, but I thought it pointless catching more so began fishing ten yards further out below the middle of the dam where I began catching salmon smolt (I think?) instead.
Moving again to a point two-thirds the way across the dam where the flow was most powerful forming a very long and rapid plume (imagine an ostrich feather) over boulders and just a couple of feet deep, I then began trotting just along its near edge. Here the float would start, and stop, and start again, whilst traveling through a succession of eddie currents. There were no bites whatsoever from juvenile salmonids there, and even minnows were absent, nevertheless it seemed the most promising water I'd fished all morning so I stuck at it and began a routine of feeding a small handful of maggots into the plume before each and every trot.
Steve came down to see me reporting a couple of hard-won chub but no sign of barbel. As we talked, I struck my first bite from this new line. Expecting yet another frantically wriggling parr, smolt or minnow, at long last, the rod hooped over hard as a proper fish powered straight into the most difficult place to extract one from — and where else would that be but the fastest water of all!
It wasn't barbel. That was clear. It wasn't large trout either, unless a dozy one. It had to be chub by the sensation of determined heavy thumping transmitted up the line. Steve fetched my net and readied himself, I applied side strain to haul it out the heavy current into the slower water, and when it came clear made my way across the treacherous rocky bed to our bank pulling clear of trouble in a protracted tug-of-war.
But, the hook-hold failed at the last moment! It was a good chub though, as predicted.
Steve went off downstream to fish under and around a large and impressive driftwood tree occupying mid-river. I decided to plug away at this swim for as long as it would produce bites. I didn't have to wait very long for the next. The tail end and each side of the plume became a hive of activity with fish plucking swirling loose feed from the upper surface. A swirl every now and then in the far distance showed that.
Bites came three-quarters the way down the plume's length, slightly to one side and slightly to the other, but never dead-centre. Picking maggots out by eye in the swirling eddy currents, they were nailing them before they were lost to the next fish down.
Approximate angling position and catch points. Nothing of note was found anywhere outside the hotspot
Each came on the dot, ten minutes apart. Within an hour I'd four chub in the net and had lost a couple more to inevitable hook-pulls. All were over four-pounds but none ever threatened to break the fine but well-balanced tackle because in the river you have a winning edge that you don't from the bank. That edge is mobility and the ability to create good angles at will to outwit the fish.
If it takes a lot of line then follow it — when it goes where you don't want it to — then go where it doesn't want you to — which is where it lies.
Fine is good when you're right at the centre of the compass of possibility, and the finer there the better, I'd say! Because, with infinite mobility, on the chessboard of the fight you're no longer the hobbled Knight with his restricted moves, but the Queen!
No wonder salmon anglers buy waders like they're going out of fashion...
A proper Queen!
Lesson learned good and proper. If only a powerhouse barbel would show I'd prove my theory right!
Unfortunately, that delicious thought occurred exactly when a flotilla of 20 canoes passed through, and of course they took the most exciting line, which was my productive line. Bites ceased. Then a couple of boys who'd been swimming in the fast current at the head of the swim decided to allow themselves get swept along by it and ended up right in the hotspot.
My sport was over. Bites never came again...
Would the barbel have shown on the two-hour mark as Chris Plumb had found? I don't know that because I had an hour and three-quarters in that swim before it was wrecked, but if they were there then I'm sure they would have. Never mind. The experience stored in the memory and written down for posterity will be useful in the future.
And the future is this coming Thursday.
A three day break on the Wark's Avon and a perfect wading trotting swim I've had my beady eye on for some long time. No swimmers and canoeists about to wreck things there, but plenty of barbel who'll fall one after the other...
On the trot, you might say!
But we'll see about all that when the time comes around.
Conclusions
The brass wire-stemmed balsa avon with a large domed top was the right tool for job. The fine heavy stem allowed the buoyant tapering float body to ride choppy and turbulent water, upright and effortlessly. However, I could have used a larger float and a change of tip colour would have been useful at distance.
The small load of shot allowed the bait to flutter naturally and not drag into crevices in the boulders snagging bottom only once or twice in many hours work.
Low shallow water and protracted high temperatures sees fish enjoying the fastest, most broken, and therefore best-oxygenated water available but avoiding areas of long-standing slack with low oxygen levels.
Loose fed maggots will travel 50 yards or more in just two or three feet of broken water until they are intercepted and the feeding zone created may be a very long way off. Moving position downstream to counter this only pushes the feeding zone further along and creates a confused zone of dissipation at the tail end where the water force diminishes.
Wading allows for perfect line selection and control. When trotting only a few yards outside of a productive line, bites may cease altogether, or those from different species may be found.
Far finer tackle is usable from mid-river than would ever be advisable from the bank because of the unrestricted 360 degree field of play.
Wading in fast rivers full of boulders is potentially life threatening. Even a small amount of extra water in the river would have made standing difficult and moving across boulders treacherous. A lot more water and it would have been impossible. Wade alone at your peril.
