Alien Visitor

After catching that little perch on my last trip to the river I fancied a couple of hours trying to find his big brother. Once again the lure of choice was a yellow Beetle Spin. The only fish interested in attacking the lure were greedy little chub - still a lot of fun - but what was fascinating was watching other fish react to the lure.

In the clear water I watched perch, chub, barbel, a carp and even roach come and inspect the weird alien visitor to their world. It was a great way to locate fish - noted for future trips - especially the bigger perch which were shoaled up where I wasn't expecting them - I'll be back to see if they fancy worms as they wouldn’t grab a lure.


I switched lure to a Zoom Grub so I could fish a lot slower. And as I twitched the lure under a weedbed I had a slamming take and the reel screamed - it could only be one thing - but until I saw it I couldn't believe it. I was connected to a barbel about 7lb, and as I gained control I could see it was hooked fair and square in the mouth.

Unfortunately as I got the net off my back the hook pinged out (on examination the hook on the ultra fine jighead had straightened - I wasn't expecting to hook a barbel). So close to my first lure-caught barbel. Was it a fluke? I know people do target them on lures. Upgraded jigheads and Zoom Grubs added to the arsenal!