A mixed bag of results.

With a dry forecast on the the Monday morning I decided on a barbel trip back to the Derwent for the afternoon.  Flasks and tackle ready I set out, on arrival at the venue I found just one car already in the carpark, though I never did find the owner, perhaps he walked even further than I did.

Settling into the swim, the river looked about the same condition as experienced nearly three weeks ago when I was last here, low as with most rivers at the moment, and a slight tinge of colour probably left from the small amount of rain over the previous few days.  I was using the same tactics that had produced the previously caught pair of 11lb barbel, open-ended feeders loaded with a 50/50 mix of pellet and hemp.  8mm pellets on the hook, though I did change one of the baited hooks later in the session to include a trimed down monster crab boilie.

It did not take too long to find that looks can deceive and there was a considerable amount of blanket weed coming down the river giving a slight problem.  One cast could be left for 15mins -20 mins, but the next would last only two minutes before the weed caught the line and I had to reel back.  Not the end of the world, and although a nuisance, I could fish and in fact went on to take a couple of barbel, a tench, a roach and a gudgeon.  Only the larger of the two barbel was weighed and that went 7lb-14oz, a weight well down for the fight he gave me.  With the roach only going perhaps 12oz and the gudgeon far less than that, it makes one wonder how they get hooked on pellets but it happens as a regular occurance.

Come Wednesday and I was going zander fishing with Mervyn and there lies the hook in that title of 'A mixed bag of results.'  We were to travel in Merv's car and I had all my gear ready waiting in the van, some to access from the side door, the rest in the back.  Merv arrived and with my gear loaded we were soon on our way, but on arrival a slight problem was immediatly noticed, I had left nearly all my gear in the back of the van.

A quick check soon showed that I had the absolute minimum to be able to fish, rods, reels, end tackle and bait, then perhaps the most important thing, two flasks that had been held in a carrier bag at the side door.  No chair, tackle bag with all its appropriate bits of extra tackle and my food supply, no camera or scales, I might catch one, but I could not weigh or photograph it!

As it turned out we had a nice day with strong winds along with warm, dry weather.  I sat on the unhooking mat, while Merv relaxed in his comfortable chair, well he is recovering from surgery and he did share his sarnies with me!  One take on lamprey, which fell off moments after the strike was the total result from the two swims tried, but there is always another day, perhaps I'll take all the gear next time.

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