Once again I set the target of 100 Small River barbel over the season. Cracked in September, I ended up with 185 barbel - including 4 doubles. Fantastic local fishing when I haven't got a lot of time!
Opening morning 10lb 14oz (top). Recaptured July, 10lb 7oz (above).
October beauty, 10lb 12oz.
A January 10lb 12oz - my 30th double from the river.
March, 9lb 14oz - so close to the magic mark.
| Season | No | 5+ | 7+ | 10+ | Best |
| 2010/11 | 27 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6lb 6oz |
| 2011/12 | 44 | 14 | 8 | 0 | 9lb 12oz |
| 2012/13 | 56 | 34 | 20 | 6 | 12lb 4oz |
| 2013/14 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 7lb 13oz |
| 2014/15 | 71 | 33 | 16 | 1 | 10lb 1oz |
| 2015/16 | 127 | 45 | 15 | 0 | 9lb 4oz |
| 2016/17 | 70 | 31 | 15 | 2 | 11lb 15oz |
| 2017/18 | 132 | 56 | 23 | 2 | 10lb 9oz |
| 2018/19 | 101 | 36 | 13 | 1 | 10lb 3oz |
| 2019/20 | 164 | 69 | 28 | 5 | 12lb 1oz |
| 2020/21 | 250 | 77 | 20 | 6 | 14lb 2oz |
| 2021/22 | 180 | 34 | 8 | 2 | 11lb 1oz |
| 2022/23 | 228 | 47 | 8 | 1 | 10lb 9oz |
| 2023/24 | 185 | 59 | 16 | 4 | 10lb 14oz |
| Total: | 1,643 | 541 | 194 | 30 | Breakdown |
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Plus I also targeted The Wye landing 19 barbel to 9lb 7oz, and two new rivers. An 8lb 0oz barbel from the Blackwater on a rain soaked afternoon and my first Severn barbel, a 12lb 2oz beauty!
Overall season total: 206 barbel |
And I caught my first ever small river barbel. Not bad for a 600 mile round trip!! Great season as ever Brian.
ReplyDeleteThat was the most important barbel out of the Small River this season! We’ll get some more this summer!!
DeleteYou certainly get the best out of the river, I wonder if the General is still alive (aka MeatBall).
ReplyDeleteReally hope so, a really big barbel that’s difficult to find - would love to see her again!
DeleteSome cracking fish and nice stats! Do you log any other variables along with each capture - weather etc? I keep a log of all my pike against weather, river, moon phase etc, alongside any wye 20 I see/hear of - just made it over 200x wye 20s at the end of this season gone, some interesting patterns
ReplyDeleteBait, surface, moving or static, and water levels. Oh, and location - very interesting to see how they move about during the season - there is a definite pattern when it gets colder.
DeleteWow - a record of 200 Wye twenties - and I know how quickly you can track location - you’re the man in the know when it comes to Wye pike!!
Nice! Yeah always interesting to see how much some of the fish move around - seen a few wye pike move 10+ miles between captures.
DeleteI just love gathering data and delving into it! Happy to share some of the graphs I've got if you're interested
I expect some follow the bait fish, then just find shallow gravels when it’s time to spawn. Then there are some that seem to take residence in a small section / sections depending on the time of year. Yeah, I’d love to see some of your graphs - thank you.
DeleteYeah exactly that, some seem to stay put for several years and others only appear once in one spot, expect they're passing through.
DeleteSure - will send some stuff over
Interesting stuff. I’ll go through it all (and find out how to catch Wye pike) - cheers.
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