Pixham pleasures!!!!

7lb 1oz from Monmouth

Another great week or so on the river bank has just passed and yet more great stories to tell! This last few days has been no exception to the rule and despite stupidly low river conditions and clear water, the rivers have excelled in providing me with some of the best river fishing sport I have had in my career!

I paid a visit to my club water with Mathew again earlier in the week and we fished the same swims we had fished the week prior. Mathew chose to fish the lower swim and I went upstream a little.

On arrival I balled in around a half dozen small balls of groundbait and put both rods very slightly down stream of it. The action began almost immediately after and both of us started to receive a huge quantity of trembles on the rods. It wasn't long before my left hand rod hooped over into action and a very strong fish powered off down stream. The fight was dogged and intense. The fish knew all the tricks in the book and went for a fallen tree under the water below my swim. A bit of upstream pulling saw her clear and eventually into the waiting net.

7lb 2oz...peas in a pod!

I got the camera and weighing gear ready and wet the sling and mat. I hoisted her clear of the water and I knew then that I was looking at another double for the season! On the scales she tipped 10lb 10oz! Well chuffed with the result.

Things went a little quiet then and it wasn't until it was just dusk before I took another 2 smaller fish of 7lb 1oz and 7lb 2oz. Mathews swim was totally dead and all he managed all evening was a fat old 4lb chub! Very strange evening all round really as the fish just couldn't be placed in one spot and the 3 I took all came from different parts of the swim!

My ticket finally came through from the Barbel Society this week for Pixham Ferry on the Severn. I've been wanting to give the River Severn a go for some time now but the BAA stretches that I once had a small dabble on when I first moved to Wales are just a little out of reach for a days fishing. The best part of the Pixham ticket is that you can fully night fish for up to 48hrs, which means I can make it a worth while visit.

10lb 10oz! Stunning in every way!

I got in touch with Lee Wilkes who is the Fishery Manager and he pointed me in the right direction with regards to parking an swims etc and I made the journey up on Tuesday afternoon. On arrival there was just one other chap present who was fishing until about 11pm. I opted to fish a few swims up from him on a section known as 'The Flats'.

Pixham on the Severn and lots of new challenges!

This is an area of low, exposed bank, made up of hard mud covered in low water grass. A great spot to put up my brolly and bed for the 2 nights. The swim offers great accessibility to a very large expense of open water area. I started off casting one long to a gravel section I found towards the far shelf and put the other in the middle gutter which has a depth of about 12 feet I reckon.

The action was almost non stop from Bream and by 8pm I was already about 6 fish up! Each one was a real chunk though and I don't honestly think I've ever caught so many large bream! My first barbel came around 11pm and a sprightly 7lb barbel finally graced my net! My first 'proper' barbel from the river at last!

Lovely jubley!

The fishing stayed hectic all night and 1 bream after another found the back of the net. The barbel seemed a little off the feed so I started to introduce a few balls of groundbait lower down the swim but just up from a large mid river snag that apparently holds the fish.

The fishing in the day was little slower than at night so I made the choice to sleep a bit in the day and target the fish in their feeding period. This proved successful and the next evening saw me land just 4 bream to a total of 8 barbel! Much better figures!

What a back drop!

The other thing I did to slow down the bream was to just ignore any bite that didn't take line from the reel and I opted to fish a large wide gape 6 hook, long hair rig and a 20mm hook bait! This certainly slowed the bream down. It may have hindered my chances with the barbel but it did allow me to keep a bait in the water for a longer period of time. I found out to my dismay that there is a large amount of logs and tree debris in that particular swim. It's obviously been washed up in the winter floods and has been deposited on the shelf of the inside marginal area. This makes playing fish very hazardous at the best of times. The only way to get them in seemed to be to strike, pull like crazy and get the rod as high as possible! Bully boy tactics that I hate to employ but they seemed to be needed in this case.

9lb 1oz of River Severn power!!!!

The best fish of the trip turned out to be very chunky 9lb 1oz fish. This particular fish was rather recognizable as it had a split tail fin. Lee had also caught it a few times at a similar weight over the prior weeks.

One of 19 bream to 7lb 14oz!!!

Right, lots to do....there's some great bait orders coming in again and there's quite a few days guiding booked in over the next week or two....busy, busy!

Tight lines all
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