Summer Fishing 2021

A summer of bread! It's pretty much all I've used for bait so far this season - sorry bait companies. Well the short summer season has once again flown past; roach, trout, chub, a few eels and lashings and lashings of barbel (153) - so before it's wooly hats and wellies here's a quick summer review - written monthly as I went along...


June: I managed to hit the Small River five times during the opening two weeks (one full day and 4 afternoons). Action was explosive with 62 barbel landed - plus a small carp, a pound plus eel and about a dozen chub! The bigger barbel are eluding me but hopefully I'll track them down. Cracking start to the season!!


July: Extreme weather; a heatwave followed by storms and flooding. The barbel fishing was still hectic, small fish, but I cracked my Barbel Challenge - 104 barbel! And mission with the stick 'n' pin resulted in a mixed bag including some lovely gudgeon. With the 100 barbel target in the bag I really need to locate some bigger specimens...


August: Still trying to track down a bigger barbel - best of the month was a 7lb 3oz beauty. I did land a surprise new PB eel - on bread! As a break from the barbel, a trip to the Itchen resulted in a couple of pound plus roach and five bream. And a wander along a neglected chalk stream provided some cracking wild brown trout.


September: A return to the chalk stream produced the most stunning wild brown trout I've ever seen. A quick mission to the Small River saw a double figure barbel added to the season. And three days on the very low, clear River Wye produced some fantastic chub and barbel action. Small River summer barbel count: 140.

And now it's time for pike...