He told us “I struggle to sit all day and wait it out for one bite from a specimen though – I like to target everything that’s in there. Alongside the stretch’s famous barbel and chub, the roach and dace are also making a comeback, and there are plenty of other smaller fish about. But you’ve always got those big fish in the back of your mind, so on a recent trip where I arrived with barbel my target, I employed a tactic that I know has worked for a few of the other lads on there – the bait and wait approach.

Essentially, you introduce feed to a swim and leave it alone for a few hours, with no lines in the water. In theory, this allows the fish to feed confidently without angling pressure and should increase the chance of a bite once you make a cast. Arriving at around 3pm and finding a swim I liked the look of, I introduced a few bait droppers of hemp and pellets. I fed a pint of hemp, and the pellets were a mixture of all the ones I had in my bag, including Robin Reds, halibuts, and some cheese and garlic ones.

After depositing the feed, I wandered upstream and spent three hours trotting – having a lovely time and keeping busy whilst I left the barbel to swim to simmer. In my opinion, the big fish in this stretch don’t sit in one spot – they’re regularly on the move. But if you can encourage them to mooch around a bit of feed, they’ll hand around for a bit longer.

After I’d had a bit of fun on the float, I returned to the barbel spot and topped up with a bit more feed before dropping my hookbait in – a squid and garlic Vortex baits pellet. They really stink, but I’ve had good catches since recently starting to use them. This was fished on a 12-inch fluorocarbon hooklink and a strong size 10 hook.

It wasn’t long after casting out that I had a typical savage barbel bite, with the fish nearly pulling my rod in! A good scrap followed before I slipped the net under the new PB.
“It’s my third barbel from the stretch and was caught in a way that suits my style of fishing – allowing me to keep busy throughout the day and enjoy other species, whilst still giving me hope of landing something a little bit special.”

Well done Keith!