Extracts from the experiences of a river angler, mostly barbel, but with comment and musings about other species, river wildlife and associated topics. All pictures will enlarge if you click on them.

The journey from the airport to the river lodges was an amazing white-knuckle ride, with the mad chaos of Bangalore traffic only slightly less frightening than the country roads. Everybody is in a desperate hurry to get somewhere, and there seem to be no rules. The constant hooting of horns was apparently aimed blindly at every other road user, which included the pedestrians, cattle, ox carts, motor bikes, motorised rickshaws and lorries, all overloaded with people and goods. Our driver was on his mobile phone for almost the entire journey, and was an exponent of the near head-on collision technique of overtaking. The nerve of the oncoming driver always broke first, thankfully.

The Cauvery is a wild, rocky mountain-fed river, with a tremendous fall, which meant that the long slow pools were interspersed with some scary rapids, which were often the favoured lie of the mahseer.
Fishing was either from frail looking coracles, home-made from bamboo and tarpaulin, or from rocky outcrops, with a coracle close by should a fish be hooked that needed to be followed. The river is full of fish, including small silver mahseer, a range of catfish, barbel and tilapia, as well as some carp-type things that were highly prized as food by the guides. The bigger mahseer are rarer, of course, and by no means as big as they used to be, but fish of 80-90lbs were reported this year.

Bait usually comprised a huge boilie the size of a grapefruit, made from ragi, a millet flour, and cunningly flavoured. Soft uncooked ragi would last only seconds because of the small fish, and the huge boiled ragi balls would often only survive for an hour or less. Forty pound mono and uptide rods are needed to cope with the power of the bigger mahseer, as well as the rocky nature of the bottom, which was mainly basalt or granite, with a few sandbanks in the slower areas. A bite from a mahseer is not so much a bite from a fish as a force of nature. One minute you are sitting peacefully, feeling the nibbles of small fish, or subtle changes in the current, the next you are having your arms wrenched from your sockets as something immensely powerful hooks itself and rushes off downstream, or upstream if you are lucky. My biggest did go upstream, fortunately, and despite going to ground behind a rock for a few minutes, and making some sizzling runs, it finally succumbed after a relatively short fight, and was soon recovering on the stringer. The fish are well cared for by the guides, who recognise their worth, and a great silver mahseer of almost fifty pounds was soon swimming strongly back into the current.

The mahseer are a major resource to the area, but like our rivers, their home is under threat from the usual demands of humanity. The pools outside the national parks are still dynamited, and dead and stunned fish retrieved for food. The hydroelectric dams are utilised more intensively, and plans are afoot to build more of them, and the water of the river is going to be increasingly abstracted to meet the needs of the rising tide of the Indian population. Pollution will no doubt take a toll in the future too, and there was some risk in wading in the river, which I was careful not to drink. A dead body, partly consumed by crocodiles, drifted past on the last day, and nobody in camp seemed to be remotely surprised.

The little barbel were a welcome sight, and all of them swam off full of life, and into a seemingly vast and dangerous environment. It will be a few years before there is any evidence that they have survived in sufficient numbers to repopulate the river. Next season I intend to spend a lot of time spotting for them on the shallows close to the stocking sites, and am encouraged by the news that there have already been sightings of some fish that must have been from the first stocking two years ago. These were fish of between one and two pounds, and they may be breeders by next year! Stocking should only be considered when the causes of a decline have been identified and are being addressed, and I am much happier to see funds going into habitat work and research than stock fish.

The fish we stocked yesterday would have cost four or five pounds each from a commercial supplier, so we are most grateful for the EA supplying us with nine thousand of them over the last three years!
Now we must plan and spend the five thousand pounds plus that the BS and local clubs have on the habitat work that will ensure that the barbel and other coarse fish populations in the river have a better home to live in, and will be able to sustain their own numbers!

The next day was forecast fairly dry as well, so tried a little commercial fishery with perch advertised amongst the carp/roach/tench/chub/bream/crucians/gudgeon that seem to typify the stocking policy on such fisheries. The roach and carp were delighted to gorge themselves on the lobs I offered over a bed of red maggot, but I did get a few perch to almost two, very fat and well fed fish that would probably have preferred a little live bait. Crayfish were a nuisance too, and with no shortage of grub, those perch may get really big one day. I will wait for some really cold weather before going back, when the carp might have slowed down a bit. They are good fun on light tackle, but not when you are after something stripey.

Good news from the Cherwell, which I visited earlier in the year to share some ideas with a local club and the EA. We were in agreement that there would be some scope for a bit of habitat improvement that should link with some stocking of barbel to address a serious decline in stocks, and I was delighted to hear that the EA had not only researched, planned and funded the fry bays, but stocked 500 barbel from Calverton. Some chub and roach were provided too, and it shows that a bit of sensible dialogue with the Agency and sharing of ideas can reap rewards. The local fishery officer and club officials are to be commended for working together to try and make something happen that will go some way towards repairing the little rivers that have been so damaged by dredging and linkage with canals, and the badly impounded stretches like the upper Cherwell do need a helping hand. The crays and the otters will have some effect too, I am sure, but making the habitat more amenable to survival of fish and fry is a key issue. The BS has offered funds to help with more habitat work in the coming season, and it will be interesting to see if the barbel show up next summer too!

Even the little perch are a real event, and very welcome after a few hours of fruitlessly searching the Avon backwaters with a lively, enquiring lobworm. The solid thump of a bigger fish is even more welcome, and they fight as hard as any winter chub, probably a bit harder, actually, for their size. The best of the season picked up a big fat lob laid on well over depth in a corner of a weirpool this afternoon, and at two-ten, a very respectable and satisfying fish. The previous afternoon I had a good bag of perch from the Stour, a dozen fish all between half a pound and a pound, and they all snapped up the lobworm on the bottom in preference to a moving bait, even though there were perch regularly striking at the swarms of minnows that infest both rivers at the moment. These bold and handsome fish make a nice change from the barbel and chub, and there is much to learn about them and some good fishing to be had in the next few years, especially since they are spreading and growing on both my local rivers.

The Research and Conservation auction will be in full flow soon, and there is a very striking picture of a perch from the Ouse that was taken by Martin Bowler in his search to catch the impossible as one of the lots on offer. The original proof from the book that accompanies the series is signed by both Martin and Hugh Miles, and nicely framed. Well worth a look at the other lots too; all great bargains and in a good cause!

These carp are impressive fish, nearly all commons, and the paleness of their flanks was more than made up for by their brightly coloured fins and tails. Sport was a bit slow to begin with, but we soon racked up a reasonable tally of fish each day, with a good average size. It seems that these fish are still growing, and there is a real chance of a forty during a weeks visit, with a good head of big thirties about. My best was a bit over thirty eight, but mid thirties and twenty plus fish came in very regularly. Best fish in our group was a forty two. They do not fight as hard as their Canadian cousins, but can be very dogged under the rod tip; I can still picture my biggest fish thumping away, six feet down in the clear water under my feet as I stood on tiptoe on the rocks and struggled to keep him out of the jagged rock face. A fish that big is hard to move, even when he is tired and almost ready for the net.

The main quarry for the mix of anglers that visit the Ebro seemed to be the catfish, and the beds of bait ferried out by boat are astounding in quantity; several sacks of monster halibut pellet are apparently needed in order to lure the big cats to your bait, and some people spend a lot of money in search of seven foot of ugly slime. The beastly things have no attraction for me, but I might give it a go next year if pushed. The carp are a more interesting quarry, as are the shoals of roach that can be a real pest at times, I am informed. We had a bit of trouble with roach on one day, with two pound plus fish trying to take 20mm boilies. My pb Spanish roach is now two pounds three ounces, an average fish, with three plus and even four pound roach regularly reported. Some roach tackle is going along next time.

Work on smaller river sections like this can be very worthwhile, and every bit of extra information from research like this could have benefits for barbel rivers elsewhere. It seems that there are several river systems where the pattern of barbel getting fewer and fewer and bigger and bigger, with no real sign of smaller fish to replace the big old girls, is being repeated. Of course, some small fish may be very old, and it could be that there are six and seven pounders out there as old as the fifteen and sixteens, we do not really know. Some rivers like the Wye and Trent, are enjoying a bit of a boom at the moment, while others like the Bristol Avon and Thames tributaries are suffering a fairly sudden slump. The Severn and Teme are seemingly lacking in numbers of barbel too. It could be that such boom and bust population changes are quite natural, and in some cases they are accelerated by other factors such as loss of spawning areas, or predator increases. Again, we do not know, although some angling pundits claim to have all the answers!

The situation is not as simple as some would suggest, I think, but the more we find out the better, and the more effort we make to protect and repair damaged rivers the more chance we have of maintaining a self sustaining stock of fish. The next Research and Conservation Auction is coming up soon, and with your help we can continue to make a contribution to a range of projects that will aid efforts to help our rivers.
We had a little event on the Avon in conjunction with the Roach Club recently, and raised over four thousand pounds, half of which will be going into restoration work on the river targeted at barbel in particular.

The Avon chub are going from strength to strength in terms of both size and numbers, and there are also signs that the barbel are recruiting well, with fish of one or two pounds showing up quite regularly. There were smaller barbel than the one Gerry caught in the shoal we saw, and reports of them all over the river.
Let us hope they are there in enough numbers to replace the big fish that still seem to dominate the barbel scene on the river at the moment. The swim we fished was the one which produced an Avon fish of just under sixteen for me a few years ago, and that one is gone for certain now because it was found dead the following season a few miles downstream and now gazes at me forlornly from a case on the living room wall. Gerry left very satisfied with his first day on the river, and it was a pleasure to sit and chat with him, discussing the past and future of our rivers and generally putting the world to rights.

The barbel are still about, and apart from regular reports of small fish from a few inches to a pound, the doubles are still showing well. I had three doubles in three afternoon sessions since my return, and it seems that the middle river continues to fish as well as ever it has in recent years. That said, there are stretches that are suffering from low populations of both chub and barbel, and roach and dace stocks are still very patchy indeed. A low river through the summer will no doubt benefit this year's fry, and if we do not get too many fierce and savage flood events over the winter, the coarse fish will benefit. Unfortunately, dry summers and very wet winters are a likely result of climate change, and any river restoration or habitat improvements envisaged must take these changes into account.

Imagine drifting almost silently down the river, a mile wide expanse of mysterious and ever changing combination of fast runs and hippo infested drop offs, with the sounds of elephant, hippo and a wealth of birdlife interrupted by the scream of a clutch as an angry tigerfish engulfs your bait and hurtles into the distance at awesome speed, then suddenly leaps skywards, shaking its head and gnashing its teeth as it tries to unhook itself. We had nearly seventy tigers over twelve days, and many were well into double figures, with me taking a personal best of sixteen pounds and several fourteen pound plus fish. Dave Steuart was keen on the vundu, and he had a couple of thirty pound plus fish. I was not so keen on them, preferring to concentrate on the tigers, but I ended up being impressed with the vundu, which is a sort of catfish, but without the eel like appearance of the European variety. It fights like hell too, and Dave did well to land his biggest on tiger tackle when it took a bit of fish strip in the middle of the day on a tigerfish run.

We met some really nice people, especially the locals, who were kept in stitches by Dave. We saw some incredible wildlife, and had some scary and very close encounters with hippos and elephants, an apparently dead croc that burst into life inches from my rod tip, and an untimely puncture of a Landrover tyre far too close to lions for comfort. I have been closer to these creatures than ever before, and it is a bit humbling.
When you can see the whites in the eyes of animals that would kill or eat you with ease, it tends to concentrate your attention, but I was pleased to have no sightings of snakes or insect trouble at all.

Most days we took out a coolbox of drink and a lavish packed lunch, and anchored up to a convenient tree for the hottest part of the day. One day we were sat at the head of an island under a huge Acacia festooned with nests of bright little weaver birds, with a pod of thirty hippo a few yards upstream, water buffalo on the island beside us and a herd of elephant squabbling noisily across the channel. Giant herons, storks, kingfishers and circling fish eagles completed the picture. Being surrounded by wildlife was not enough; the odd tigerfish would grab bait left legered out of the back of the boat, interrupting lunch.

Booking again for next year shortly!

I had heard reports that the fishery was fishing as well as ever, with bags of half a dozen fish in a day quite common, and specimens to twelve pounds. There had been sightings of good shoals of fish in the usual swims, and I was also delighted to hear from a bailiff that the new swims with overhead cover of willow rafts had all produced fish. I fished a couple of swims, a couple of hours in each, and had four nice barbel, typical spirited Teme fish in the three to seven pound range, and a bag of fish like that by someone who does not know the stretch that well sounds more than OK to me. The inevitable bait was a small Elips pellet, fished in conjunction with a PVA bag of crushed pellet and micropellet, and the barbel responded with great enthusiasm. The chub seemed to be very numerous too, and one was a good five pounder.

As ever, we saw only one other angler, and it was nice to be able to park securely and safely close to the river. The Teme is as uncomfortable to fish as ever, and it takes some getting used to; clambering up and down steep banks, but that is all part of the Teme experience.

Back to Simon, who arrived full of anticipation, and even more eager to catch an Avon barbel after his three previous fruitless visits? Catching one to order is not guaranteed these days by any means, but there were fish in his swim that showed a real interest in the bait. After three failed attempts, it took eight minutes before a beautiful bright eight pounder grabbed his bait, and it was a relief for both Simon and me that he had finally bagged his Avon fish. Full of confidence, we rebaited and cast again, and would have been more than happy if that fish and a few chub had made the day worthwhile. I spotted a most respectable fish in the swim a little later, which was really getting its head down, and quietly advised Simon that he could well do an Avon double as well!

He did it in style, and a solid thirteen eight was his reward for the persistence and confidence he had shown; a fantastic fish, which had him jumping up and down and grinning in delight. Well done that man and next target a seven pound chub!

The barbel of the Wensum were kind to me on the two days I fished, and along with at least fifteen goodly chub, several over five pounds, I had four barbel from a new river, including a ten pounder and a very welcome monster of fourteen five. A memorable first visit to the river, and not to be my last, I am sure.

My guide was extremely helpful, and we sat and chatted for the whole of the time, after a grand tour of the river. He did make me some tea that was perhaps the worst brew that I have ever experienced, but the barbel made up for it! Thanks again for the help and hospitality Mark! I have promised to get him an Avon barbel or two in return.

The river was low and clearish, and the lack of flow was not ideal for bagging up with barbel, though we managed about a dozen between us, and Simon A got the best bag of fish, although not the biggest on the stretch. Someone lost an estimated double at the net, I am told. Most of the fish came during the day, and there were loads of bream and roach and occasional perch about too.

It was nice to fish the Severn again, and especially at Beauchamp, where the BS fishery is secluded and secure both in terms of other people and car parking, and never even remotely crowded. Beauchamp has produced some big barbel in the past, up to nearly sixteen, and was once noted for a high proportion of doubles. This area of river is not now very fashionable, but there is the potential for some excellent fishing if only more people got down there. I will go again later in the year, and go for a nice bag of Severn barbel again. They do fight remarkably well, and it a long time since a strong fish has zoomed off across that wide mysterious river and plodded scarily upstream. I used to do well on the hemp and caster or maggot feeder approach, catching all day long even in bright weather. Even with a centrepin you can bait heavily along the shelf about three rod lengths out, and draw the fish into swims right under the bank in some places. Most fish came from the middle of the river when I was there, and only the bream deigned to come into my close-in swim that day. Some of the fish caught were bright and beautiful three pounders, which give screaming bites worthy of barbel three times their size and good omens for the future of the river.

Back to the Avon next day, and this time it was stalking a single fish, spotted as a mere glimpse of fins through the weed fronds, but it rolled gently on its side just once and showed off a very long deep flank.
A very good double, and it was reacting very favourably to Glyn the Baitmakers latest concoction. It took until early evening, when the fish could no longer be properly sighted, before it took a hook bait, and the powerful way it cruised across the river, stopped, then went some more, made me realise it was a special fish. Slow and deep it fought, and when it swam purposefully off upstream and took line off the pin without too much effort, it confirmed again to me that it was a very good fish. At 14.4, the best of the season and a terrific way to christen my new rod, a pair of which I was forced to purchase after I reversed the car over my rod bag last week and crunched my Harrisons beyond repair. Mr Harrison made a pretty penny out of me last week, but his rod still worked a treat, and I have taken two doubles in a row on it, because the next fish to come out of the swim was a lovely chocolate and bronze eleven six, a typical highly coloured Avon specimen. Must give Glyn a ring and congratulate him, four doubles in a fortnight on his new bait, and when I picked it up he had run out of coffee, so I was saved the ordeal of having to drink it. My luck will run out soon.

I saw a nice clean patch, with no barbel in evidence, but it looked right and the first two sessions produced a few nondescript chub. The fourth visit produced a brief glimpse of a pinky pectoral, and a flick of a tail that was certainly not a chub. The swim was very hard to see into, and standing for half an hour or more was needed before a shadow, or even better a waving tail as a barbel grubbed about briefly in the weed and betrayed its presence and interest in the crumbled boilies and hemp. Over a couple of days, five fish including two clean double figure fish were to succumb; slow fishing, but two in a day from the Middle Avon is often as good as it gets these days. One of the fish was a fresh little four pounder, hopefully evidence of some year classes that will sustain a viable population for the future.

The ratio of doubles remains at about one in three, and I have had seven doubles out of twenty three fish so far from the Avon this year, which is as good as it has been in recent years. I reckon if I had fished the Avon exclusively, done whole day sessions, fished well into dark, or not been distracted by other species, that tally could have been doubled easily. In the Eighties, it was common to catch six or seven barbel in a session, but a double was almost unheard of, and would have been one in a hundred. Fish populations change; they grow and they die, and we are only ever experiencing a snapshot of the population structure. We may have to face a period of lots of four to six pound shoalies, and with doubles a rarity again in a few years. That scenario would be popular with a lot of anglers, and there is a very strong argument that size isn't everything.

Within hours, the ditches were colonised by fry from the margins of the main river, and hopefully this new habitat will give shelter to them to grow in over the warmer months as well as a shelter from the fierce flows of winter. The margins of the ditches will quickly sprout new growth of rush and reed to provide cover, and I am eager to see how they look after a few weeks and all the spoil has dried out and regrowth has started. The local cattle herd were fascinated by the work, and they were kept fenced out for the duration. The British White breed are a smallish variety that are not too damaging as far as poaching is concerned, a term used to describe damage to banks and soil structure by trampling with their hooves, rather than illegal fishing. Cattle poaching can lead to bankside erosion and siltation of rivers in certain circumstances, and I am assured this lot are less damaging than most. They look very cute and innocent, it must be said.

One barbel would have made his day, but he ended up with two, although the best one refused to weigh more than nine pounds fifteen and a half ounces, but Bernard was delighted. He is one of those rare breed who enjoy fishing for the whole experience, not the numbers or targets or personal bests, and he kept reassuring me that a day sitting on a peaceful stretch of the Hampshire Avon would have been more than enough to make his day. Two barbel and six chub were a dream come true, and we both left feeling well pleased.

The barbel was a recognisable fish that has been around the area for a while, and I have caught him at least twice before at a bit over ten pounds as a rule. He is one of those fish that is a bit crooked and cranked, a hump backed fish that does not fight overly hard, but is surviving well despite the alleged ravages of floods and otters.

There were some biggish chub in the swim too, in fact big enough for me to adapt tactics in order to try and fool one or two of them at the same time. I was using small pellets, and made the hook link a bit shorter, the hook a bit smaller, and the lead a bit heavier. Every time I baited the swim with hemp and micro pellet, put in with a bait dropper, the chub moved in, and six of them hooked themselves a treat in the centre of the bottom lip as they picked up the hook bait. Avon chub are a good average size, and all the fish were over five pounds, with two six plus specimens that were quite long and lean and looked like sevens in the water.
I do not mind catching the chub when barbel fishing, especially when they are that size and they often bring in the barbel as they home in on your bait.

The final bird experience of the day was the frightening sight of a swan exploding as it hit the power lines that cross the river nearby. Not sure if they actually hit the lines, or whether they just fly by close enough to cause a short circuit. A few thousand volts soon made short work of the swan though, and a deafening bang, a brilliant flash of light and a brief flurry of singed feathers signaled the demise of a bird that will not be missed by many. They are becoming rather numerous, and I would much sooner see a few more of the rarer species.

The crayfish were about that day, and nearly forced me to move swims, since I knew from experience that crays are rarely in evidence when barbel are around. A last minute baitdropping session must have moved the barbel in and the crays out, because a quiet couple of casts, with no twiddles and tweaks at the rod tip betraying the robbing crustaceans, preceded a rod wrencher that signaled a big greedy barbel grabbing my hook bait. The crays are heavily trapped on the stretch, and this has seen a decline in their numbers that makes fishing much easier. There is a theory that removal of the large breeders only encourages proliferation of smaller crays in large numbers that are more damaging to other species, but I am not convinced. The smaller ones are more likely to become fish food, and chub and barbel will undoubtedly munch smaller crayfish. There is no doubt that pike eat them as well, as I have taken stillwater pike bulging with crays in their gut. Otters will also relish crays in preference to chasing fish. The theory that they make our fish bigger is not one that I subscribe to; big barbel, chub and perch are evident in many crayfish free waters! They are a damn nuisance, and do not belong, and it may be that some form of biological control of crays will need to be researched before they take over most of out freshwater fisheries. They have been on the Hampshire Avon for years, but thankfully only in tiny numbers. They will reach the Severn and Warks Avon soon, and are probably already there in fact.

The Avon does not seem to suit them, thank the Lord, and it may be that they will never take hold on fast, gravelly rivers. Avon and Stour chub, barbel, and perch for that matter are growing quite nicely without crays to feed on, and any GCSE Biology student can give us a simple explanation of food chain/biomass science to explain that. The Avon is fishing well, with lots of barbel from all sorts of swims, along with chub of all sizes, proving that the poor fishing of last year was not due to otter predation/ pollution/ floodwater washing fish away. The barbel are there in good numbers, for the Avon, and were always there, and most people are having good results. One or two barbel in a day is good for the river these days, and I have had thirteen barbel in twelve trips, all afternoon/evening sessions. Most anglers I know are having similar results. Last fish was a lovely chocolate bronze ten fifteen, full of life and fitness, clean and fin perfect with no hookmarks. I found him, fed him and watched him switch on to hemp and caster in a golden gravel run, and he pulled the rod in after a couple of hours of tempting and feeding.

A trip to the Kennet and a new stretch proved remarkably productive, with a brace of twelves and an eleven in a catch of six fish that kept me nicely occupied through the afternoon. They made the ratchet screech alarmingly at every bite! The bigger fish were chunky and well proportioned, and the smaller samples were similarly fit and seemingly well recovered from spawning. A few trout and dace were in evidence too, and it seems that the river has a good fish population in general, and a range of barbel year classes, unlike some rivers where the barbel shoals are dominated by a few big, old fish. The range of barbel population structures on our rivers is in need of some study, but how we do it is beyond current EA funding, perhaps we should encourage much more angler monitoring of catches; something the BS intends to do on its fisheries from this season onwards.

The barbel of the Avon are well on the feed, and that afternoon I had three nice fat fish on a paste I had knocked up from last years ingredients, up to a healthy 9.14. The biggest fish in the swim evaded me, and unusually came off the hook after charging off across the river. It was possible to watch the fish as they cautiously moved out of cover in response to the trail of hemp and bits of paste that I was introducing, and eventually they became confident almost under the rod top. I left them for a couple of hours to gain even more confidence, feeding them up before I finally cast in. Once they get really used to feeding in your chosen area, it is possible to lure them back even after one of their number has been caught. Cast in too early, too greedily, and you may land one, but spook the others for the duration.

There are no signs that the Avon barbel have been slaughtered by the otters that have been here in numbers for several years, and the chub seem even more numerous. Catches are back to the expected normal after the disaster of last season, proving that the fish were there all the time, and not the victims of floods or pollution or predators. Let us hope that the same story is repeating itself on other rivers, and my visits to Kennet and Loddon would support that. Our stretch at Bransford on the Teme is also fishing very well, with good bags of fish to eleven pounds and sightings of big shoals of barbel. I must get up there in the next week or so and catch some fish from under our new willow rafts! This fishery is a delight, quiet and peaceful and under fished, with loads of productive swims and unfished water too, and apparently a good head of barbel are in evidence again.

The barbel were responsive today, and the particle approach bagged seven and a couple of fish that slipped the hook, which was quite unusual, so I should have had nine. It rained heavily and persistently in the afternoon, and I was so wet and miserable by about six that I gave it up and headed for home, even though a couple more fish would have been likely. The forecast said light showers, and I soon became soaked with only an umbrella and no waterproofs with me. Enough is enough, and I was more than happy with a day where the rod was dragged in every hour or so, and I could work at the swim actively, baiting and waiting and figuring out the best routine.

One of the fish was a fish I remembered from last year. It had a really nasty looking hole in the head and an ugly growth within it, all sore and horrible, but it has clearly survived and is on the mend. It certainly fought well, and was otherwise in excellent condition. Fish are capable of surviving quite severe injuries, and I always return a dodgy looking fish, confident that it can make a recovery without much help.

The Hampshire Avon barbel are special too, and although they are probably genetically indistinguishable from barbel in any other UK river, they have a sort of look about them that I have not seen in any other barbel. They are rich with colour and vibrance, and although not truly native to the river, they still draw anglers from all over the country to fish for them in the magnificent surroundings of the Avon valley.
Not so much a valley as a floodplain, and likely to be afforded even more protection and care as the various government bodies vie to manage the SSSI. SAC areas as well as follow the latest directives to protect and restore the Avon to its former glory. Leaving it alone could have some benefit too.

The birthday treat of a gallon of maggots was worth a try in a swim that seemed ideal for a go at the old established maggot feeder approach, and the barbel that are possibly becoming a bit wary of boilies and pellet were certainly keen on the maggot, and I knew they would be. A pint or two of white maggot, wriggling furiously in the heat, was carefully droppered in before fishing, along with a similar an mount of hemp, and a big blockend with four maggots hair rigged on a long tail was eventually plopped in on top of it all half an hour later, after the fish had been given time to get frenzied. An afternoon in this fast streamy run between the thick ranunculus beds resulted in three barbel, a good catch for the Avon these days, and topped by a very welcome twelve six that looked young and healthy and full of spirit. It certainly took some getting out, and a more gratefully received birthday present could hardly be imagined.

Plenty of doubles, nearly
20th June 2009

The Loddon was to be the venue for my first river trip of the season, and as soon as the jet lag had sort of worn off, it was up the M3 for an afternoon on that intimate little river. The water was very clear, certainly a big change from last year, and it was nice to find a few fish by spotting, and to feed them up and sort of stalk them out of the swim. They responded quite enthusiastically to some well prepared secret particles, and there were two nice fish that made a mistake in the afternoon and started the season off well, one a good eight and the other a scraper ten pounder, both seemed well recovered from spawning and fighting fit.
The third fish in the swim could not cope with the pressure, and disappeared, never to return that day, though I did nab him on my next visit! He, or probably she, was another big eight, but looked much bigger in the water, and again seemed very fat and chunky for the time of year. First barbel and first double, so the season was off to a satisfactory start.

Next day and I was to get a bag of ten fish, with seven doubles all in the ten to eleven pound class, but they fought very poorly and made me stop reeling in on a couple of occasions. Not barbel, of course, but bream, and a really satisfying catch despite the lack of fighting qualities. The bigger bream make up for lack of fight with an impressive bulk, and the tactics and the whole experience of baiting, spodding, distance casting and tricky rigs makes a nice change from barbel fishing. I even used those clever little black boxes that bleep at you when you get a bite, but like in Canada I never even switched then on., apart from a couple of occasions when I almost nodded off. It is a bit unpleasant getting slimed when these great sullen fish give a slow, resentful kick during the unhooking process, but they are sort of exciting and very intriguing to fish for and good fun to catch when they behave and feed lustily.

The unhooking mat was deslimed a day or two later on the Hampshire Avon, when a couple of fit fighting barbel started the account on that river. They were also well recovered from spawning, like the Loddon fish, though there were tales on several southern rivers of barbel doing a second spawning in response to the hot weather. They do not always deposit everything in the initial spawning, especially when it occurred early as it did this year, and it is not unusual for them to have another go if conditions trigger it. Every third Avon barbel is a double, I always say these days, and my third nearly made it at 9.14. A leanish fish that had maybe done a second spawn, and a good pound underweight for its length.

Back from Canada with jetlag
15th June 2009

The St Lawrence was particularly clear this year, and I still have very clear memories of thirty plus wild common carp emerging from the depths and foraging innocently about on the beds of stinky maize that were used to attract and hold them, or even better fighting furiously on the end of my line. Surprisingly little maize was needed from my observations, but some English anglers used huge amounts to little real effect. It was only the English anglers really that can spoil fishing in Canada, but there is usually room to avoid them. If I want to be annoyed by noisy greedy Essex carp anglers with no concept of volume control on either their gobs or their bite alarms, mindlessly piling in bait in the next swim, I can go to any lake in Essex, but in truth there were only one or two occasions when we were unlucky enough to be close to our noble countrymen.

Mostly, the fishing is set in vast scenic vistas, with the cry of the loon, the redwing blackbird or the snuffling raccoon the main background noise, apart from at the weekends when the boat traffic increases a bit. The river is huge, and can easily accommodate the human visitors that take advantage of this wonderful natural resource. The carp were a little late in migrating from the deep water into the bays to spawn, but this meant that the fewer fish we caught were a bit bigger, though the size is not that important. You can not predict whether the next bite will be a mere big double or a thirty plus, and the experience of these wild bold biting fish in numbers to keep you busy all day is enough. The fight they put up is astounding, and I can not get enough of that experience of a lean, big finned, fit and fast moving common hurtling off into the deep water and making my heavy tackle seem oddly inadequate.

The plan is to keep up an annual pilgrimage to the river, and to meet even more interesting people, absorb the atmosphere and observe the wildlife, eat more Canadian breakfasts, and maybe try and educate the locals away from either ignoring or eating the carp. On the other hand, the culture is theirs, and perhaps we are wrong in seeing all fish life as sacred, and wishing to impose our values on them. The trouble is, they have loads more fish and a lot less anglers!

We have anglers who worship and treasure a carp, with hunters outnumbering the hunted sometimes a hundred to one when you consider the lot of a targeted named carp on an established UK carp water.
In Canada, the new brand of local carper takes the family out for a day, and if lucky enough to hook and land a carp, they will gut, descale and barbecue it on the bank and think it entirely acceptable. There are millions of carp in the system, and rod and lining probably makes a negligible impact on their welfare or numbers.

It was a delight to spend a week in the sparsely populated French countryside, fishing a new, previously unfished swim every day, and trying out local restaurants, or a selection of fine wines, cheeses, bread and meat back at the farmhouse in the evenings. There were smallish powerful little barbel, bream, carp ,chub and nase, and although there are sileurs there up to forty pounds or so, we never contacted one, although some big heavy fish did get away in the rocks.

The fishing was simple and restful, with small pellets, corn or maggot combined with cage feeders and method mix, and an underarm lob with a centrepin in the smooth glides generally produced a fairly instant response. The fish are not big, but the surroundings and the ambience, and the friendly attitude of all the local pecheurs we met made it a most relaxing break. My French was rather good when I got a Grade 1 O level a good few years ago, but has become a bit rusty. It was good to awaken all that almost forgotten knowledge, and to share the French enthusiasm for fishing. My mate Steve could only manage the phrases "mange tout Rodney", and "Le Singe est dans l`arbre", which kept the Frenchies away from him most of the time, which suited him and them both really.

Must go again soon, I could easily become very keen on that sort of fishing.

There was loads of instream cover left in, commonly known as Large Woody Debris, but we added a bit of low cover in several places in the form of willow rafts that will provide direct overhead shelter and give chub and barbel safe hidey holes without being nasty snags. A bit of an experiment that we will be keeping an eye on this coming season. The removal of a lot of tangled straggly old willow on the banks has produced some access to terrific new swims, and the fishery looks a treat at the moment, although the initial shock when the work was first done was a cause of concern for some. This time of year produces growth of willow bushes from dead-looking stumps that is astounding, and a low bushy willow at the waters edge is much better for fish than a straggly overhanging attempt at a tree that is only providing shade. Some of the stumps at the waters edge are now little bushes two feet tall, and will make fine overhangs by mid summer. It was a shame to see the Himalayan Balsam in profusion, and there is a worry that it will oust the nettles and cause bank erosion when it dies and exposes bare soil in the winter. Nettles have tough root systems that are excellent at binding bankside soil, so I never worry about them on a river bank. This year I will pull up all the balsam I see at Bransford, and will encourage others to do the same.

This fishery is perhaps my favourite of all the BS fisheries, with safe secure and convenient parking, and a lot more swims now to try in a mile of water, with the option of sneaking into your own personal hidey hole. The fish are still there in good numbers and a there are rarely more than two or three anglers on the water, and most often you can have the fishery to yourself. Burt Lancaster came to a bit of an unfortunate end in that film at the hands of the Apache, but I am confident the Bransford story is going to have a very happy ending!

Trev and Budge have spent many hours planning and working on the project, and the learning curve has been steep and arduous, but they have worked a little miracle between them, and their efforts can only serve to give the Avon roach populations a helping hand, along with the habitat improvement work that is continuing to occur with the help of EA and other partners such as Natural England and the Rivers Trust.
The excavation and restoration of old oxbow lakes, backwaters ditches and water meadows will all contribute to the roach revival. A week later and I was watching barbel spawning in earnest on the Bristol Avon, with several groups of fish chasing and cavorting about on the gravels, with gangs of three or four little pale males harassing much bigger and darker coloured females. These big girls, ten to twelve pounders, would eventually settle in one spot and shudder vigorously, sending up clouds of silt and gravel as they deposited their eggs. The whole process was then repeated after a bit more chasing about. I have seen barbel spawning before in April, when similar warm temperatures stimulated an early spurt of activity.
The hatchlings should have an advantage in that they will have a longer growing season and a better chance of over wintering, I expect, but none of our assumptions can be certain. There is certainly a lot of evidence that the exceptional warm dry conditions of 1976 produced a healthy and numerous fish population of many species, and our monitoring of fish populations these days is much improved. Watch out for a barbel boom in five to ten years time if this warm spring continues into a repeat of `76.

There has been much speculation about declining barbel stocks and poor sport last year, but we may just be experiencing a natural cycle, an expected boom and bust in populations that is unavoidable and a healthy and normal process. Predators and pollution will have a role to play also, but may not be the only factor in population changes.

It was interesting to attend a presentation by the EA at the BS regional meeting in Bedfordshire last night, and note that the problems of the Stour are not that different to those on the Great Ouse, where the Great National Dredging of the late seventies and early eighties produced lengths of impounded water, with historical spawning gravels sacrificed in the process. Land drainage and navigation by barges was seen as more important than riverine habitats. Slackish flat bottomed reaches punctuated the barriers to fish in the form of weirs are not favourable to gravel spawners. We can not easily return the millions of tonnes of gravel, but there are ways of helping the rivers repair themselves. It could be that the decline in barbel stocks seen on the Stour, Ouse and Upper Thames are partly the result of those dredgings thirty years ago, and our current stock of doubles may well be that old.

Fish passes and habitat restoration are to be found in the current Water Framework Directive proposed actions, but let us hope that there will be the funding and the political will to make sure that damaged rivers are mended in our lifetimes. The EA project on the Great Ouse is looking at habitat that favours juvenile barbel, and they need all the information they can get on spawning sites, and present and historical catch returns, especially of small barbel. The BS will be helping all it can, so keep an eye out for more information on this one, and contribute to the spawning survey if you can, not just on the Ouse but all your rivers. We will be helping with funding some habitat work in the future as well.

The river looks very nice at this time of year, running quite low and clearing nicely, with signs of the green shoots of recovery in the sedge, nettle and willows after that harsh winter. The amazing growth of willow that has been damaged or cut back never ceases to impress me, and the willow coppiced and pollarded at the BS water at Bransford on the Teme will be springing into life now, albeit a little behind the regrowth to be seen on the more southerly Avon. Some pollards that I photographed last year are now about to green up, but the amount of sprouting that has occurred in less than a year is remarkable. These trees are real survivors, and it seems that the harder you cut them, the faster they grow, and any bit of twig or branch shoots and becomes another tree if left in the right conditions. The roots of willows make fine spawning substrate for a lot of fish, willows provide shade and can also strengthen river banks and slow down undesirable erosion if placed properly. They will overtake and envelop a river if not managed in any way, however.

It was my turn to check the salmon egg boxes on the upper river that the Wessex Salmon and Rivers Trust are using to investigate salmon procreation and the habitat requirements of young salmon. They are starting to swim up out of the gravel now, and are neatly captured in a little trap on the outlet of the box. These tiny salmon are counted and released daily, and only two were evident today. They were easily counted, therefore, and then taken to the release site a short distance away. The expectations are that a big increase in fry will occur any day now. It is hard to see how these tiny little slips of fish can eventually feed up, become parr, then smolts, and then make their way to the sea, avoiding a whole series of obstructions and predators on their journey up to the North Atlantic, only to return as monsters of perhaps twenty or thirty pounds in three years time.

Such enhancement work is likely to be listed as desirable action in the Water Framework Directive for the area, and having just spent some time trawling through the extensive documentation linked to the current round of consultation, I would urge all anglers to take a look too. The amount of information is staggering, but the highlights in my area, South West, are that our rivers are failing to achieve good status because of two main factors; phosphate levels, and low FISH populations. All the actions to address these failures should concentrate, therefore, on cleaning up sewage treatment work effluents, and improving FISH populations. At my recent EA meeting to discuss the WFD consultation, I mentioned that all their proposed actions seemed to help fish in theory, so could not be criticised. However, I suggested that the effects of increased numbers of fish predators could have some effect on fish populations. I suggested that research into fish predator numbers should be added to the list. I would suggest that you all do the same!

Check out the EA website, and the WFD Consultation process in your area. Look in Appendix B for current proposed actions. Should keep you busy in the Close Season.