River Severn, Arley, sunday 27/6/10

Please do not adjust your eyes you did read the venue correctly i did say the river Severn. Most of the people who know me reacted with the words "AY" (black country for what) when i told them as they know me as a still-water angler only and were astounded with disbelief when i mentioned running water. I am probably among the thousands of anglers that were brought up on the rivers but turned there attention to the growing boom in carp pools a few years ago. For me i was working in a forge when i was fishing the rivers every week and after a few bad draws and a week of sweating my knackers off i decided to learn how to catch carp( still trying to learn?). At the time you had to book into places like Woodlands & Moorlands or you wouldn't get a peg (100-150 peggers), but my first love was the rivers as i suppose we had no other choice really. The matches those days were 300+ pegs on the worcester waters, BAA matches of the same size or sold out KDAA matches at Bewdley of 100+. I had fished the rivers for some 25+ years from around the age of 6 until my early 30's thanks to my dad, all of my early memories of fishing were made on the rivers so i like to fish them occasionally to bring all those memories back? (CRAP). Me and Stav like to call our annual river trip as our 12 monthly injection, an injection of 5 hours of boredom catching very little is usually enough to quench any thirst of returning to the rivers full time and makes us appreciate catching loads of fish on the commercials. I had missed my 12 monthly injection last year so it had been 2 years since i had last fished the flowing stuff which i had won with 4lb of hemp/roach on the Avon at Twining? ( stunning result!). Stav made an excuse for this one saying he was doing some work on his pool at home? ( he lies me thinks?) he had a good lifetime injection last year after fishing the Larford festival for 5 days averaging over 100lb per day then going on the river at the weekend for 10oz of bleak? ( injection complete ). So with this match clashing with the England v Germany world cup clash an early draw was voted for so we could get back for England's greatest humiliation on a football pitch? ( enough said ). Shaun had picked me up within plenty of time for the 7.30am draw, as it is one of the closest points on the river from us around 15-16 miles it wasn't long before we pulled up on the Arley left bank car park. Then all the jokes started "what yo doin ere me mon?" "did yo take a wrong turn at Woodlands?" etc which i replied "con yo catch down the edge?" or " do they catch on pellet wagg?" " my god someone has pulled the plug out all the water is running away". There were only 13 blokes turning out today due to the football and the attendances are normally lower on the rivers anyway, i drew out peg 9 which meant nothing to me as it had been around 10 years since my last visit. A quick look on the map suggested i was about 3 pegs below the ford which used to be an island years ago but has changed due to the big floods. I had lightened my gear considerably with just the base of my fox box with my bit's in and my new fox 4 rod holdall to hump up the river on my penrose barrow platform. The first thing i noticed when i got to my peg was the guy pleasure fishing opposite me!!! great the first time back on the Severn for 3 years and as i stood weighing up what to do on the peg he threw his feeder way past the middle on to my side so i had to give him the evil stare? It worked because as i continued to set up he stared to throw his feeder upstream, then i was left wonder how long had he been there and more importantly how much bait had he put in? I set up 2 feeder rods but left my float rod in the bag as i felt John Bab on the peg below was a bit to close for the float, the water was still moving a bit although i was 3-4 pegs below the main rapids i would have around 20 seconds with a float before it would be in-front of John. Bait for the day was simple i had a bag each of 3&4mm halibut pellets, 2 pints of casters, 2 pints of hemp and some 8&10mm hali pellets for the hook. On the whistle i put the feeder around 20-22m out in-front of me just behind some boil in the water showing some underwater rocks, i planed to fish the pellet for the first 2 hours then switch to the caster if the pellet failed. I had a mix of both 3&4mm pellets in the feeder but it took around 15 mins of swapping different weight feeders to get it to just hold bottom before i was happy. After about 30-35 mins the tip lunged forward once then dropped back and i was connected to my first river barbel for 3 years, my trusty old silstar traverse-x heavy feeder rod was bent over nicely but with 8lb maxima mainline and 6lb bayer hook-length the fight was short lived and a 3 1/2lb barbel was soon netted. The guy on the other side gave me a few funny looks as he started to pack his gear in obivious disgust, i don't know how long he had been there but the sight of me landing a barbel after 1/2 hour must have been to much for him ( sorry ). It took around another hour before my next bite which was a mirror copy of the first and ended up with the same result a barbel of similar size, i had been trying 8 & 10mm pellets on the hook, changing the length of the hook-length and casting either side of my main feed area but couldn't force another response. Two of the lads had walked up from below me and said that no one was catching barbel just odd bits, on the way back down Ollie said that he had been up to his son Stuart on peg 6 and he had got 4 fish barbel & chub but they were on the small side. We were now at the half way point in the match so i decided to switch to the caster for an hour but if it didn't work i still had 1 1/2 hours to switch back to the pellet. I mixed a pint each of casters and hemp then made a few quick casts just a few yards short of my main pellet line into some slightly deeper water to put a small bed down. I had a couple of small taps on the tip and the casters were gone but no fish, this happened around 3 times on the trot so i decided to hold the rod on the next cast and struck at the next bite the result was a 2oz chublet. On the next cast while still holding the rod i had a much better bite and barbel no3 was soon in the net, next cast the same result this one around 5lb. Great i had been fishing the wrong bait? 2 barbel in 2 casts only after switching to the bait for around 30 mins, Wrong another hour later with only a 12 oz chub to show for it a look back on the pellet was called for. Try as i may but by the final whistle i had not had another bite on either bait, a quick pack up session was called for to get back for the footie. John & me had to weigh pegs 6-10 ( using 3 sets of scales for a quick getaway ) Stuart on peg 6 had got 10 fish right under the rapids he said they were small and he was right 25lb the scales read some of the chub were bigger than the barbel. There was only 4lb on the peg below Stuart then a DNW on peg 8 above me, my 4 barbel and 2 small chub went 19lb, John on the peg below had 1 good chub + bits for just short of 5lb. On the last 3 pegs down towards the car park the top weight was only 3lb odd?, up the top end pegs 1-5 Ken on peg 4 had 23lb which put me in 3rd place overall with 4th dropping down to 4lb odd?
On reflection not a bad day i had caught 4 barbel, came 3 rd overall, won some beer tokens and had a nice quite day out in the English countryside?????Bollocks????? I had been double banked when i got there, on 2 separate occasions i had a dog swimming in my peg, canoes up and down, a sort of by-plane micro-lite thing flying overhead and last but not least the bloody Severn valley railway hooting his hooter every time he came passed on the opposite bank making me jump out of my skin the first couple of times? A realy quite day out NOT. Well done to Stuart for winning his first Cradley match. It was quite clear that because the river was so low that you needed to draw fast broken oxygenated water to have a chance of catching barbel, it was also noticable that most of the fish had been caught on caster i think i was the only to catch any on the pellet?
I had come through my 12 monthly injection without to many scares but weather i fish it again this year remains to be seen? I will keep you posted.