Barbel 9lb
By 9am I was all packed having changed my tackle over from Pike to Barbel. It was rather frosty so I hoped that wouldn't put the fish down but I figured the warmish rain in the river would have more effect than a night of cold. It was also rather bright but with a last quarter moon expected later it was a case of 'who dares wins Rodney' and after all I caught my PB in bright sunny conditions (albeit a bit warmer). I successfully negotiated the long drive down to the Trent and arrived around 11am. There was only the one vehicle in the car park so, after dumping my tackle in the 'car park swim', I strolled down to the bottom of the stretch to enquire of the two anglers there how they were doing. The river was up a couple of feet with a good colour and judging by the three inches of freshly deposited silt had dropped a couple of feet overnight.
I got fishing for 11-30am, full of optimism, and after a couple of hours of depositing feeder loads I had my first Barbel at 6lb 7oz. I was pleased to get my February Barbel under my belt and plugged away, recasting every 30 mins or so as the crud built up on the line and pulled the feeder round. My camera remote had refused to function which meant pressing the camera button then quickly retiring and posing with the fish before my ten seconds of timer expired; this resulted in some undignified poses as the slippy silt was making my footing somewhat precarious. I then managed to lose one when the ratchet on my ageing Shimano baitrunner decided to unexpectedly give way and whilst I was fiddling about mometary slack line allowed the barbless hook to drop out. Around 3-15pm a second Barbel graced the net, a little bigger at 7lb 1oz. Having changed to my backup remote (I always carry two remotes and a spare battery for both remote and camera) I thought the photos would be plain sailing but it was not to be, somehow the wireless remote delay was now at two seconds making posing rushed to say the least. Half an hour later I had my first fish on the downstream rod a feisty 9lb'er which gave a good account of itself. By now I'd sorted out my camera control issues so the picture was taken without any dramas. At least the earlier pictures would provide amusement for my fellow IAC members to share.
Further Barbel of 8lb, 6lb 9oz and 8lb 10oz followed as day turned into night. I had a brief visit from Zander Tim, who came to pick up a replacement oval brolly I had transported from a fellow IAC member in Leeds to replace the one he managed to destroy back in late 2010. By now it was a darkish, cold and clear night with stars visible in abundance and a slick of ice covering my unhooking mat, which did make subsequent fish manipulation a slippy affair. Just prior to 7pm a 6lb 11oz Barbel fell to the downstream rod and the same bait was taken immediately on recasting by one just an ounce lighter. Around 7-40pm I started to pack the camera, unhooking mat and tripod away so my last Barbel estimated at a conservative 5lb 8oz was, unusually for me, neither weighed nor photographed. I thought I had 10 Barbel but a later countback of photos indicated I'd lost count and it was in fact 9. Still a good result and that takes my season's tally to 72, only 3 short of my best ever season and quite surprising given I had a terrible start to my Barbel season in Yorkshire and on the Wye.