31/10 Derwent

Quite well weighed down as I had both perch and barbel gear with me, so obviously decided to fish somewhere involving a long walk...
1st take an energetic pike which took me all over the place. Ended up packing up and moving swims due to the disturbance.


2nd swim a couple of nice perch on livebait, the best a plumper of 2lb 12oz and one a bit smaller on maggot. One pike which unfortunately caused a landing net handle malfunction lifting it from the water. Went home without barbel fishing.

29/10 Trent

A blank saving bream. For whatever reason, no real confidence that I was going to catch and left early.

26/10 Derwent

About 5 perch on the paternoster, but nothing over about 1 1/2lbs. Some kids fishing a bit further down did get a good one though...My furthest downstream Derwent grayling, a pleasant surprise.

Stayed on into dark in the hope of a barbel. 2 chub, the biggest a long fish but a bit skinny, just under 5lbs.

24/10 Trent

Another Trent swim that I was 'weeded out' of last time. Not so weedy tonight but not clear either. Started with a little one after literally 5 mins at 17:30 but that was that for the evening. A couple of fishy taps inbetween the weed, I think.

21/10 Derwent

Local stretch again, quite handy for me at the mo. Pretty quiet fish wise, just the one at 19:40, 12lb 2oz. Back to being very low again, at least it was a bit warmer this evening.

19/10 Trent

Another failed attempt at perching...one small one and a dace. More successful on the barbel front, one bite, one fish 11lb 10oz at 20:25. Decided to call it a night then, air temp was showing 2.5 degrees.

14/10 Derwent

Going to have to change this from 'tough local stretch' to 'local stretch', theres a few more barbel here than first thought. Have now had a range of them here from 1lb to 12lb. This net is clearly not big enough for barbel though...

1st fish at 18:50, 10lb 14oz (above/ below)

This was followed by 2 further barbel - 19:10 (about 7lb) and a pinhead at 20:00. Should really have stayed on later...

12/10 Derwent

Same stretch a couple of hundred yards up, previous swim mostly underwater...

One missed take due to pellet tangling around the hook and a couple of knocks, but no fish.

11/10 Derwent

A pleasant surprise to find a couple of extra feet of water in the river and even more surprisingly very little debris coming down. Having put this down as my 'tough local stretch', its proving to be a bit different than expected. 3 small barbel the biggest maybe 5lb at 19:15, 20:00 and 20:10. The river started rising again and did become difficult to fish with the ammount of rubbish coming down, time to go home.

07/10 Derwent

Slightly bigger livebaits and slightly bigger perch - to about 1 1/2lbs. Bit of pike trouble though, 2 of them or maybe the same one twice that killed the swim both times, the second time for good. 1 bream on boilie.
End of a dissapointing week off work but, as they say a bad days fishing is better than being stuck in the office all week or something like that.

05/10 Derwent

Back a bit closer to home...should listen to my own advice re: using small livebaits and catching small perch. Caught some small perch. Another baby barbel at 18:40 and a strange shaped chub, had a bit of a hump back but very deep bodied. Weighed 5lb 7oz, should weigh a bit more when it fills out. Also caught a catapult.

04/10 Warwickshire Avon

A change of venues but similar conditions to the local rivers - low and clear with lots of weed coming down. Maggot feeder caught a steady procession of dace and one perch. Boilies and a dace deadbait produced nothing at all. Smooth didnt fare any better.

03/10 Trent

Arrived at the river early on (well, mid-afternoon) and able to access where I had wanted to fish Saturday. Caught what I think is a first for me, minnows from the Trent, which went out as perch bait. A couple of missed takes and one small perch later changed over to the barbel rods. Weed was being quite a pain so moved upstream. Weed was actually worse there and moved back to where I started. In the end gave up and moved to another stretch where the weed was just about managable...1 bream.

01/10 Trent

A last minute change of plan due to my first choice stretch being inaccessible. Wasnt particularly confident where I ended up and about to move elsewhere before catching a 5lb barbel (21:15) and decided to stay put. No more fish after that, did find a couple of these critters near the car though.