Saturday 25 August 2012

Alive. And Kicking.


I got back to the river last night, and after fearing the worst, I saw dace topping, a koi and even saw a barbel flash - but it was almost dark so I got up early(ish) this morning for a proper look.

Just downstream of the pollution was a disaster with a big fish kill, the next stretch down suffered less, but I was interested in further down, where I thought less attention would be paid.

I saw dace and roach, three koi (including Kylie) and a barbel - a barbel were I wouldn't expect to see one. After and climbing a tree I found it was a small shoal of barbel - I needed a closer inspection of one of them - I wanted to catch one!! Dan was soon on hand, I fished corn he fished SB4...

Didn't take long before Dan had a wrap round bite and connected to a good fish. To say it was a great fight would be an understatement - probably 10 minutes of hard work, and netting it was no picnic either.

A 9lb 6oz barbel, fantastic result! I think we would have had more but a thunderstorm pushed us off the river soon after - even we aren't stupid enough to fish during lightning! And the rain is great news, diluting the pollution and washing it out of the river.

I didn't manage a barbel but I did add another species to this years list with a 3lb 1oz ornamental koi.


4 comments:

  1. She's put on 3oz since I caught her last month, such a greedy bugger indeed, nearly quarter of a pound in around a month is brilliant that means since I had her shes been gorging, being caught hadn't put her off. nIce koi as well not seen that before!

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    1. That's great, a potential double by the end of the season then.

      I've seen that koi in the water a few times, swimming over and ignoring my bait mostly. If nobody else has caught it I think I'll name her Kathy!

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  2. Good news Jane

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    1. It's good news that The Wandle Trust and the EA got involved quickly, I think it could have been a lot worse. Shame it happened in the first place though.

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