Summertime, and the Living is Easy

I'm making a blog entry just for the sake of it really this time. A month since my last entry and summer has kicked in big style. I don't fish much in the summer as I've said before so I'll roll a few reports up into one.

I managed another trip to Scotland in early July but I'm afraid I caught very little. It wasn't too surprising really as the weather was blisteringly hot and the surface temperature of the loch was 22 degrees. I had a few half-hearted takes from small pike on topwaters fished in the weeds but I only hooked three and landed just one, a seven pounder.

The only other fishing I've done is barbel fishing. There have been three trips in all, and I've been determined to fish new stretches rather than return to my old haunts. This didn't start well as i only managed a solitary eel on my first visit to the new stretch I had chosen but it gave me the opportunity to find out about the stretch and I laid plans for the next trip.

The next trip hit another snag. I turned up armed with all the tackle and bait only to find the swims I was interested in occupied by three anglers. Oh well, back to the drawing board. I didn't waste the day, but went instead to my favourite old stretch and had a good day, taking thirteen barbel and a chub. Sadly, none were of any great size with the biggest just going around seven pounds.

Trip number three was to be with my son, Joe and we made an early start at the new stretch to make sure we got the swims we wanted. We got them alright but i was soon wishing we hadn't as the spot I was in was terribly cramped with just a tiny ledge to sit on and a steep climb behind me.

I sat on that ledge for sixteen hours all though the heat of the day and got quite badly burnt by the sun, as did Joe. The forecast was for cloud and rain but guess what, they got it wrong again. We didn't get many fish, just two barbel and a chub for me and one barbel and a chub for Joe. My biggest went exactly nine pounds while Joe's barbel was 9lbs 6oz and his chub 5lbs 4oz.

A slow day but good-sized fish. We're planning the next trip already!