Small River Barbel

This evening myself and Dan popped down to the river Wandte to continue our quest for the elusive Wandte barbel. We started fishing a place called the hole which resulted in a chub about 10oz to me and a 12oz roach to Dan.

We moved to the weir and just as darkness fell I had a rod wrenching bite on ledgered worm, unfortunately the fish went under the weir and snapped me off. The next cast I used luncheon meat and it produced another fantastic bite, I landed an 8oz barbel, I had to double-check it with the torch, I had never seen a barbel this small and thought I might have caught a record breaking gudgeon! It was a barbel.

Next it was Dan's turn, but he was broken off. While I was holding the torch for him to tackle back up my rod clattered towards the water, a running dive resulted in a rescued rod and a 1lb 3oz barbel (photo above), again to luncheon meat. Dan soon had another bite and a 1lb barbel, while I was on net duty my rod made a second break for the river, I managed to catch it and it's 12oz barbel culprit.

Four barbel, a roach and a chub. Not too bad, we are starting to get a handle on this little river. It's funny, the smallest barbel I had ever caught on rod and line before tonight was 3lb 8oz and the biggest I can expect here is about 4lb, but it is such fun... we're going to aim for a three pounder here and go for the bigger fish elsewhere...

<- Dan's 12oz roach on worm, next time we are going to bring bread and see if we can find his 1lb+ bigger brother.

Season so far: Perch, carp, gudgeon, eel, roach, rudd, tench, goldfish, bream, chub and barbel... Roll on pike season...