Hants trip

A bit of free time suddenly became available to me and in light of the wife and kids wanting to visit family down south, I thought it'd be rude not to dip a line in my favorite river the Hampshire Avon. I got down the river around 10.30am after popping in to see my big bro Stuart and having coffee and cuddles with his lovely little daughter. The river was up very slightly but quite fish-able to start with. I decided to fish a swim just below the piles and boat pool and things looked rather good with overcast conditions and a little rain in the air.

The piles swim....wonderful view but it just didn't happen!

I baited up with the usual River Monster Boilie and 4 oz leads etc....I put around 10 droppers full of pellets, hemp and crushed boilies in the dropper and baited up around 10m upstream to compensate a little for the flow. I sat it out in the swim for about 3 hours but all i could muster up was two small eels! I decided a move was on the cards and I headed round the back of my swim into the piles swim and started fishing the large crease/slack in front.

Another 3 hours passed with out so much as a tremble on the tip....I was starting to think things were rather slower than i'd known before when i got a nice pull on the left hand rod. A firm strike saw the hook home and a cracking fight ensued!

The strangest of boilie captures I've ever had!!!!

I thought at last i'd got the Barbel i'd wanted or even a nice Chub but as the fish hit the surface I was gob smacked to see it was a trout of all things! On a boilie???? Got to be the strangest thing I've ever hooked on a boilie!

At just over 7lbs a reasonable one too! I took a quick snap of her next to the rod and reel and slipped her back. I sat it out until about 2 hours into darkness but to no avail. The fish just weren't playing ball.

The next morning I got around to Stueys about 8am for coffee and by 9am we were setting up in the wonderful Compound, great weir. Stuey had treated me to the day out for my birthday, which was a real treat!

The compound swim

We've had some incredible days in the compound in the past but with the amounts of weed, twigs and general rubbish coming down it was going to be a real hard day! We plugged away with feeders, straight leads etc and it just didn't happen....

Very disappointing as Stu was the only one to see a decent bite all day in the form of a typical small compound bream, a couple of dace and a small ST on the maggot feeder.

A typical compound bream on the maggot feeder

I sat it out all day for a barbel, but the fish just didn't seem to be there??? All the same, it was wonderful to see Stuey and spend a day on one of my favourite old haunts. After the heavy days fishing in strong winds and rain, we thought the only way forward was to grab the girls, get a baby sitter in for the kids and go out for a superb curry!!!!