I knew it was freezing last night and I awoke to beautiful white frost, the grass crunched under foot and the cold bit my hands, only one thing for it - pike!
I went barbel fishing. Mainly due to lack of time but as I'm on a
roll at the moment, excuse the pun, I thought I'd try and land a rare December barbel.
I spotted a couple of barbel and gave them some free samples, which they completely ignored. I did manage to get a cube of meat to bounce off one of their heads - this was not looking good. And it was made worse when James phoned to say he was pike fishing and the pike were feeding.
There was no point fishing for these two - but I gave it a couple of casts anyway. I move a short distance upstream where I spotted three more fish. These would eat the free samples as long as you got them right in front of their noses.
Targeting the biggest of the bunch I got a cube of meat right in front of him and he obliged, great fight on the light lure rod and my December prize was in the net. Scales fail again but it was about
8½lb. I've bought new scales and right after I've finished typing this I'm going to put them in my bag. In fact I'm going to do it now.
[Goes to get new scales, can't find new scales, blames cat who wakes up just long enough to not give a sh*t]
Barbel check, lets try and find a chub. I searched for over an hour and didn't even see a chub - where are they? I did have two more takes, both from barbel but both times I failed to get a hook-hold.
Enough time had passed, perhaps the barbel I got feeding earlier would like their photo taken. I crept back to the spot to find a man standing in the water with a net - f**king poacher!
Turns out he was a scientist doing a study of the insect life in rivers that are frequently polluted (the net was really small). We had a very interesting chat about bug life and some other trout studies he's involved with.
Anyway, that was the end of the fishing. December barbel - get in!
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