Over the past few weeks I have been doing something that I haven’t done for many seasons, some early season river fishing.

This came about with me not being able to get out for very long, with one thing and another and with the really warm evenings the thought of sitting in the countryside beside some nice running water became very appealing.

I very rarely start my river fishing till around about October so it would make for a refreshing and interesting change.

The first two trips of the season were to two different stretches of the Upper Trent (one new one), I always try to fish at least one new stretch every season (to try and give myself more options, and not become ‘stale’ by going to the same place all the while). First trip produced a bream of about 7lb and the second trip produced 3 decent sized chub. These were sweltering hot evenings where we fished till about 11pm and there were no barbel caught.

Since hearing of quite a major fish kill on the Upper Trent and the fact that the weed situation can be murder at this time of year we decided to head for the River Dove.

The first afternoon evening session was again in sweltering hot weather with temps up to 29 degrees centigrade and proved to be both interesting and frustrating. I had chosen a swim directly above some very shallow quick water. I had got about 3 feet of water in front of me with plenty of streamer weed (ideal for the weather conditions). After about 30 minutes I noticed what looked like a ghostie / mirror swimming about which looked to about 15lbs. This carp could be seen clearly going in and out of the streamer weed right under my feet. I started putting some pellets and Rahja Spice boilies down in this area and sure enough he came back and started feeding.

I had been feeding this spot for about 45 minutes (whilst fishing one rod well downstream out of the way) when I noticed another shape come in, this could clearly seen to be a black mirror of around 25lbs. Certainly a river fish well worth catching, so things were looking up. I continued feeding for a further hour until both fish were coming in fairly regularly and feeding confidently. I then lowered my bait down. I only waited about 5 minutes before the carp came back in. Then as I sat watching another black shape came quickly out of the weed and before I had chance to react, got my to my hook bait. I couldn’t believe it, it was a bream and of course with the ensuing disturbance the carp totally disappeared. Now in many trips I have never seen a bream on this stretch and my mate who has fished it for years has only ever caught one. Needless to say the air was blue for some time later. Still has I say frustrating but very interesting at the same time.

Line concealment

The next trip to the Dove came a few evenings later and this time I fished below some shallow rapid water. During this session I could clearly see some big barbel flashing in the water. This is something you never see in the winter.

Again a sweltering hot afternoon / evening but interesting to see the fish behaviour. I have long felt that barbel will spook off the line especially when you get leaves / stroke weed picking the line up off the bottom.

The afternoon definitely proved this point and I saw two large barbel really panic at this sight. I couldn’t fish upstream because of the nature of the swim (to give better presentation) and the use of a big backlead would have just made matters worse in this type of swim.

So I decided to add double the amount of weight that I needed to hold bottom. This would then allow me to pick the line up and using the rod I could flick off any debris without moving my bait, thus ensuring better presentation. This may sound excessive on such a small river, but by feathering the cast you can still get big weights to enter the river without it sounding like ‘a brick being thrown in’.

Doing this did the trick as at about 10.30pm the tip zipped round and a long lean barbel of 10lb 2oz was duly landed. A nice start and a good end to another interesting trip.

The smallest barbel I have seen from the Dove ( I doubt it was 3lbs) came on the next evening trip.

My next evening trip was a week later (10th July) and came a couple of days after the river had been in the fields and was still carrying about 6” extra coloured water. Much more chance of a fish in the daylight and so it proved with a fish falling to the first cast at about 4pm. This was a really hard fighting barbel of 11lb 6oz which looked a picture in the afternoon sun and proved to be my only bite of the evening.

All the fish mentioned came by feeding 4mm pellet and fishing either 16mm pellet or 2 10mm Rahja Spice Boilies.

So there we are my first few trips of the season, no monsters by national standards but really interesting and enjoyable fishing.

Cheers, Pat Gillett.

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