Back on the road to er ...... no Barbel?

As the title of this entry might suggest i am now fully mobile once again after purchasing a shiny black Ford Focus last week. Its not shiny any more though as ive pressed it into hard service already, driving down dusty farm tracks and across some pretty rugged fields in pursuit of scaley slimy things.
I finished August with an evening Zander trip on the Trent and a bumped fish as the only action i had . A few lads i know turned up with the same idea to catch the Zeds and despite the lack of action we had a good chinwag so it wasnt all bad.
My next trip was another evening, this time in pursuit of a Barbel from the Soar. I had to clear a swim as nobody had been down to the area for while and after seeing a couple of Barbs roll in the spot early on i was confident of some action. I had a couple of good pulls  just before dark which resulted in no hookups and when the rod screamed off just into dark i really thought it was Barbel time! Nobody had told the 2lb Chub which had hung itself on my line though and i packed up soon after with nothing else to show for my efforts. Since that session ive found out that another lad fished the same swim the following evening and had a 12.8! Always the the bridesmaid and all that .....
The weekend arrived and on the Saturday morning i headed to the Trent to do my Bailiff rounds. Ive started to take a lure rod with me when checking tickets just to drop in a few likely spots whilst on my travels and on this occasion it proved quite effective. 5 Perch to around a pound and a couple of bonus Chub in the 3lb class all put a nice bend in the rod.

A late evening Barbel session on the Trent rounded the day off and although i stopped till around midnight all i could manage was two Chub. The best of the two was comfortably in the 4-5lb range and might have gone bigger but it was dark and i couldnt be bothered with the rigmarole of weighing especially seeing as it wasnt a Barbel! Phil, my fishing companion certainly fared better though. He stayed on all night and tempted Barbel of 10.14 and 10.4 amongst other fish . That Bridesmaid job is becoming a fulltime thing for me!

I was down the Trent again on Sunday evening for a spot of Carbelling as id seen a few Carp whilst doing the bailiff thing the previous day. A veritable banquet of vitalin, boilies, hemp and corn was carefully laid out for the Carps inspection . Several fish head and shouldered over the bait during the course of the evening but my indicators remained motionless right up until i packed up at about 10.30. Prior to when the drizzle started after dark It was a lovely evening to be out and i feel we wont be getting too many more like it this year.