Wet Wet Wet

Nope, nothing to do with the band of the same name, it's just been a very wet summer and to be honest, I haven't fancied going out fishing much. When I have been out, it's invariably been with Joe and we've fished for barbel. He's continued his lucky streak mind, thrashing the pants off me almost every time we've been out with more and bigger fish. No more doubles though, the biggest fish (to Joe of course) went 9lbs 15oz - and before you ask, he weighed it so it wasn't a case of me knocking an ounce or two off.

Catching the river right has been a real challenge. One minute it's rising fast and bringing down tons of weed with it, the next it's been running off and dropping like a stone and it's been carrying colour all the time. The last session produced a bit of a surprise. It's a stretch I fish fairly often for barbel, with a tight bend and steep bank on the far side and the latest floods have caused major damage. Part of the bank has slipped down depositing a hundred tons or more of rubble into the river - hopefully there weren't any big fish underneath when it fell. This will undoubtedly change the character of the river at that point - whether it's for the better or worse only time will tell.

We fished one evening when the river was particularly high and I caught a solitary small barbel. Nothing odd about that you may say but that fish did cough up quite a lot of its stomach contents into the landing net. What had it been eating? - fry!

It's late August now and already the weather is feeling cooler. Autumn is just around the corner and that means pike. We can hardly wait!