Tuesday evening - June 20th

I'm still not organised with hemp seed - several large sacks are on their way - and so I am not currently planning to fish for the barbel that I saw the other day,  But what I did do tonight was to put a can of sweetcorn onto the gravel along with some fish meal pellets and boilies.  The barbel weren't there when I arrived about 6:00, so I would see if they appeared later on.

Instead, I would concentrate on a swim further upstream.  I had baited this on Sunday with some pellets and boilies and I repeated this when I arrived tonight, and then spent a couple of hours having a look at some other spots on the river, before starting to fish around 8:00.

All quiet for about 30 minutes and then a fast take that I connected with.  What ever it was, it charged off downstream despite the clutch set very tight, but then everything went slack after just 10 seconds of contact with the fish - the braid hook length had broken for no good reason - maybe it caught on something - an under water branch perhaps.  I tested the remaining hook length and this seemed fine, so I don't know why this one gave out.  My guess is that it was probably a carp rather than a barbel, but you never know.  Big disappointment

The pic below is from the video I shot and is just before the line gave out

Meanwhile, further downstream, there were 6 or 8 barbel on the gravel and they had thrown up a huge amount of dirt as they will grubbing around.  I assume this meant they had found the bait I had thrown in for them.

The pic below is from well downstream and you can just about make out two barbel on the far gravel bar mid-pic.

But I am not going to fish for these until I can get them feeding on hemp.

No more takes in the swim I was fishing nor in another I tried, though it has to be said, I am a little out of practice in casting, etc, and did rather make a mess of fishing these two spots after I lost the big one.