Then an idea, Ian the local farmer to the rescue, a chainsaw Leatherface would likely raise his eyebrows to, wielded like the expert he is, ten minutes later, jobs a good'un, a cup of Yorkshire's finest, a shake of the hand.
30 inches in length, over 3 lbs in weight I quite enjoy wielding this axe of mine, logs split to manageable pieces, a little like when I go fishing, mind elsewhere, almost therapeutic, a tonic as such. My back showing its age now though, stiff and achy, I just don't do this sort of stuff often enough.
We just need some proper cold weather now, because the fair weather tangleator wanted to join me for this session. Now don't get me wrong, he is turning in to Mini-Me, nothing wrong with that I might add.
He like me, luckily he would rather fish a tiny stream rather than a dirty great man-made hole in the ground, last weekend however without bites his mind wanders, his boredom level rises, concentration distracted, me questioning oneself why did I bring him ?
"Sam, leave that stick alone, you've a tip to watch"
4 years in to his 'pastime' the 8 year old is getting better though and can fish independently on the whole, but like me to be fair, I get restless legs sometime, hence why roving works for me. Waiting for floats to dip, motionless tips to spring into life, can get the better of me as well.
"So Daddy what are we fishing for "
"We are going to fish for Barbel"
"Errrrr, but we don't catch many of those, I think I'll stop at home instead, I'll come with you next week.
"Fair enough"
Good job too because when I popped my head in before I left it looked like he the duvet monster had swallowed him whole and it would have been difficult to set him free. So anyway the session would be don't to a section of the Avon where I've caught Barbel before, weirdly all but one or two haven't been over 9lb. The rest above 9lb and over.
The problem is the Barbel that reside here are not in numbers, it's a low stock bit of river, but if you do get a bite, it will likely be an arm tester, blanks can happen more often that not though.
Now the river was well up but there are two fishable swims here despite it being nearly over the banks. So the plan was to fish the two swims which are about 100 yards apart and do something that I usually don't do, and that is sit behind the rods.
The upstream rod a feeder with stinky groundbait and a few pellets with a Hinders Ramiz wrap and the downstream rod a chunk of meat. As per the norm I had the river to myself and after setting up in the first swim I could enjoy the sunrise. It was an odd morning weather wise, low pressure with fast moving cloud, from grey, to white, to dark clouds, to blue sky all in the space of ten minutes or so, all very bizarre.
There was a cold wind that appeared from nowhere but it was nice to hunker down and watch the tips, that's tips, whilst thinking about, well yeah, nothing, got to love this pastime of ours.
Two hours in with only a couple of timid chub pulls it was time to move on to the next swim. After settling down in to the muddy bank, again it was chilling out and preying the rod would out of nowhere wrap over and a double figure barbel would have hooked itself.
Sadly that didn't happen, despite it looking perfect conditions for a Barbel to bite nothing materialised at all, in-fact all was very quiet indeed.
Even the meat rod largely remained unhindered, that it rare I tell thee !!!!
A blank !!!!
It was nice to be bankside though, natures own Alixa, it's not all about the fishing now is it.
I'll be watching the rivers to see what they doing as I fancy a session after work in the week somewhere and where that will be, as I type this I don't know. Fingers crossed I can get out anyway.
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