Big Fish Column

Despite the pre-season omens looking reasonable, the start of the 2008 river season will surely go down as one of the most disappointing in recent years with many anglers failing to trouble the scorers during their opening session.

In fact, it was so bad that on two of the most noted beats on the Kennet only two barbel were reported by more than 50 anglers on opening day, and neither of those topped the pound mark!

The first day of a new river season is often an anti-climax and every season anglers find the three month wait rewarded with scant returns and the feeling that the anticipation of the event was far better than the reality.

As anglers we are very good at finding excuses for why we have failed and very often it is the weather which bears the brunt of the blame and this time around the weather was indeed implicated - but only as a secondary factor.

The prime factor this season appears to be the very late spawning of barbel on many rivers; in fact I have it on very good authority the barbel were still in the process of spawning on some sections of local rivers last week as the season opened.

The lateness of the nuptials on many waters this year makes a mockery of the current river close season arrangements and, although I am a long-standing critic of the timing of the closure, the chance to say ‘I told you so’ gives me very little satisfaction but...as barbel anglers we should have fished through to the end of May and hung up our rods from the beginning of June on those sections where it was warranted.

After the damp squib which was opening day, a few anglers cottoned on to the fact that the barbel were still largely congregated on the spawning shallows and catches did improve during opening weekend as these areas received more attention but it was a slow and painful introduction to the new term with the fish not quite ready to drop into their usual routines. It will, of course, improve greatly during the next couple of weeks although the chub are likely to respond before the barbel really begin to feed hard and eat themselves back into shape after their spawning exertions.

To make a tricky week even worse, the carp and tench on numbers of stillwaters decided it was also time to spawn and started to go through the motions. Sudden changes of weather stopped the activity on many waters before it really became serious but did little to improve results as far as the angling was concerned.

The best local results for last week came from the commercial pools where sport has continued to be reasonably consistent with carp, tench and bream making decent bags on all of the usual fisheries with pole and sprayed pellet particularly effective for the carp with plenty of fish in the upper layers willing to feed.

The prime week of the year for so many failed to deliver this time around; the rivers will come good, it’s just a case of biding your time, keeping in touch with the venues you want to fish and getting out as soon as it starts to improve.

Any anglers wishing to report catches may contact me on 07780 755138 or on ian@bigfishtrail.com