Question for Pat please….

Pat I moved to Grantham Lincs last season. I would like to fish for
some Trent barbel (upper Trent) with the chance of a fish or two. I’m
around 40mins from Shardlow and I see the Derby Railway club has some
water there.

Richard

Pat Replied:

Hi Richard,

A young looking Upper Trent double

There are plenty of barbel in the area you mention. I haven’t personally fished the Derby Railway stretches but I do know there are good fish on there. Because I haven’t fished it I can’t really comment on the issue of car parking on their stretches. I also think you have to pay extra for fishing at night.

I would however have no hesitation in recommending the Burton Mutual Angling Association who have in the region of 8 to 10 miles of the Upper Trent in the area you are looking at. I have fished a few of their stretches and the parking is fine and always has been. Burton Mutual also have around 6 to 8 miles of the River Dove, again with mainly secure parking.

Because of the vast amount of water available you can be sure of some quiet unspoilt sport if you are prepared to do a bit of pioneering and not just follow the crowds.

A typical River Dove double

It is always worth a try in the winter as long as you get the conditions right. In fact I would say that the Upper Trent is probably easier to fish in the winter than earlier in the year, has you don’t have the problem of weed debris coming downstream all the while. Also be prepared to fish 5 or 6 hours into dark as the Upper Trent barbel can be very nocturnal (Burton have no extra cost for fishing the rivers at night).

The Upper Trent barbel fight exceptionally hard and because of this I would recommend using a rod of at least 1 3/4lb test curve coupled with a minimum of 10lb line.

All the usual methods will catch these fish, at the moment I am doing well with the Rahja Spice Shelf Life’s and the mini mixed pellet mix. I like to use 2 rods and to ‘ring the changes’ on one of them to see if I can find something that outscores everything else.

I would suggest checking the websites for the 2 clubs mentioned (Burton also have a Forum you can look at), to see which you think suits you best.

Hope this helps, let us know how you get on.

Cheers,

Pat Gillett

 

The only cover for 200 yards

Saturday Ist October – River Dove

I made a visit to a stretch of the river that I haven’t fished for about 3 years. I never actually caught a barbel from this area despite trying lots of swims, all I ever caught was chub.

On walking the stretch it proved to be a lot shallower (amplified by the exceptionally low water level) than I remembered. The only fish I saw were a barbel of about 9lb, half a dozen chub and half a dozen bream. These were all in the same swim, which my mate dropped into.

I chose a swim that although it was very shallow, had 10 yards of bushes on the far side. This was the only cover for about 200 yards up or downstream so I figured was bound to hold some fish. continue reading…

Pat Gillett continues his excellent Diary Blog…

Didn’t get out much at all during August with 3 or 4 short trips to the Trent and the Dove which produced a couple of smallish barbel and 2 lost fish (cut – offs) on a stretch of the Dove which I had not fished before.

Friday 2^nd September – Upper Trent

Made a visit to a stretch of the river that I hadn’t fished for about 12 years.The river here is very narrow and it was absolutely choked with weed, so much so that it was restricting the flow of the river. It was 4pm before I found anywhere that I thought was worth trying. Packed up at 8.15pm (strictly no night fishing) and only had 1 small bream to show for my efforts.

I had put a bit of bait in 2 spots and the river was that low and clear that I actually had mallards diving on my bait (first time this has happened to me on any river), they just wouldn’t leave it alone and made that much disturbance that any chance of catching was ruined.

Don’t think I will come back to this area until later in the year.

Saturday 3^rd September – Upper Trent

Another short afternoon / evening session (4.30 to 11pm) on a different stretch of the Upper Trent. Again the river had very little flow to it and the weed wasn’t really a problem. A really warm night that produced a 4lb 9oz chub and a bream of about 7lb, both to 16mm pellet hook baits fished over the mini pellet mix. I used the Rahja Spice on the other rod for the first time but it didn’t produce anything.

Friday 9^th September – Upper Trent

This was an after work session (4.30 to 11pm), I was undecided where to go, but after checking the river levels on the environment agency website I could see that the Dove hadn’t had any fresh water, but the Upper Trent was showing a rise of 0.1m. This made my mind up for me and so it was the Upper Trent with the hope that some fresh water would spur the barbel into feeding, as long as the weed coming down (with the rise in water), didn’t make the fishing impossible.

Looking at the river it was noticeable that there was a much better flow (with the little extra water) and so I was quietly confident that I would catch a barbel.

I did away with my normal approach and fished boilies on both rods (I really wanted to give the Rahja and Ghurkha Spice a go). The upstream rod was fished in conjunction with a feeder (carrying 5oz of lead to combat the weed coming downstream), which was loaded with the mini pellet mix and some broken boilies. The downstream rod was fished just 10 feet from the bank and consisted of a 3 ½ oz lead and a stringer of various sized boilies with 2 x 15mm baits on the hair. I also baited this area with about 50 Rahja and Ghurkha spice boilies of various sizes.

After about 20 minutes the downstream rod was away and i quickly netted what proved to be a river P.B. bream of 9lb 2oz. Like the barbel from the Upper Trent this was a young looking fish in absolutely pristine condition.

A small chub soon followed on the upstream rod and then all was quiet until about 9.45pm when the upstream rod was away again and after a good fight a cracking barbel of 11lb 4oz was in the net. Before I even had time to weigh this fish, the downstream rod was away. This proved to be a barbel of about 8lb that I struggled to get into the landing net, which already contained the 11lb 4oz fish. It’s amazing how many times this happens when you just get that little feeding spell.

I had packed everything away at 11pm and was just going to reel my upstream rod in, when the bait runner started to scream, resulting in a barbel of about 7lbs.

So quite a productive short session, good initial results on the Rahja and Ghurka Spice baits on what was a really balmy night with strong winds (it was still 18 deg C when I got home at just before 1am). The weed situation wasn’t too bad and I was able to leave the baits in for up to an hour before the feeder or lead, was dislodged by the build up of weed. I am sure the extra flow spurred the fish on to feed. continue reading…

After reading Shaun’s diary type pieces, I thought I would share my own. Due to work I have been restricted to a couple of short trips a week.

Friday 8^th July – River Dove

After a bit of success on the Dove during the two previous week-ends, we were back again to the same area for another after work session. I stayed with the Special Crab after the previous results but despite trying numerous different presentations I only had a few small chub knocks to show for 6 hours fishing. I would guess that with the present conditions the barbel will revert back to feeding late at night (11pm onwards). This very often happens (on the small rivers), you get a ‘duffers fortnight’ where the fish can be caught relatively easy at the start of the season and then it changes very quickly. It was quite surprising that even with all the heavy rain showers we have been having, the river was still at the lowest level I have seen it.

Saturday 9^th July – River Dove & Upper Trent

Each season I try and fish a new stretch of river and with everywhere being extremely low and clear (and the fish having finished spawning), it seemed like the perfect time to go and have a look somewhere new.

The stretch of Dove we went to look at proved to be a major disappointment. After walking for about 1 ½ hours, through head high vegetation and nettles, clambering under and over barbed wire fences etc we never found anywhere that looked really appealing. I did see four or five nice chub (biggest would have been a big 5) but only one very small barbel, not much when you consider I could see the bottom along 95 % of the stretch.  It also proved to be the wrong time to be wearing new walking boots as my heels are now covered in blisters lol!

Part of the Upper Trent

With this stretch being unappealing we made our way an area of the Upper Trent where we had made a couple of swims on the opening weekend. You don’t usually see another angler on this area but on arrival there was another car there, and true to form the guy was fishing in the swim I had made. I ended up fishing well upstream in an area I hadn’t looked at before. I made a small gap in between the 6 feet high bull rushes and fished the remaining four hours there. Again I was bite less and the weed coming down was a real problem at times, even using 6oz to hold bottom. continue reading…