The second session resulted in one small fish landed and one good one lost to a 'hook pull'. One of those inexplicable cases of a fish having been on for a while and almost ready for the net when it just came adrift! How do they do that? The method was the good old mesh bag of pellets with a boilie on the hair.
A week later I headed back for a longer session, albeit with a delayed start. Setting up around three in the afternoon I was on the feeder with hemp and groats bound together with a new groundbait I had been sent to try out. The river was up a couple of foot or so, and rising slowly with a nice touch of colour. Despite the sunshine I was confident. A few chub rattles were had, when eventually one managed to hang itself on the down stream rod.
At five pounds seven ounces it was worth having - although chub never look 'big' in photos).
This fish came around an hour before dark and it was about three hours later that a small barbel picked up the upstream bait, two boilies on the hair. Another, but smaller, chub came along around nine forty,and shortly after that I decided to get my head down for the night. It was still mild as I turned in, but with fog forecast for the morning.
Friday the thirteenth dawned to the forecast pea souper which made the short drive to another stretch difficult with a windscreen that refused to demist - I missed the turning to the water at the first attempt and almost overshot it at the second attempt! Getting there early gave me a good choice of pegs and I got the one I fancied. The approach was the same feeder based one as the day before. With the level up it wasn't possible to fish as far out as I would have liked, even with five or six ounces the weed build up on the line made keeping a bait in place for long difficult.
The fog was slow to lift, only clearing around midday but by then I had landed four barbel in the five to six pound range - all coming to the downstream rod. After a flurry of three fish in half an hour I was thinking along the lines of Friday 13th, fishing peg 13 and catching thirteen barbel to thirteen pounds. But four was to be the limit.
I fished into dark without a bite until a chub of around three pounds committed suicide as I was packing up.
