New friends and even a fish or two!

First perch of the Autumn for me

What a change in the weather all of a sudden eh? Wow! Last week we were bathing in the delights of a late burst of summer sun with over night temperatures well into the upper teens....this week we've had the first frosts of the year. What a difference a few days makes. Last nights clear sky and full moon saw a cold, dew coated ground and needless to say cold hands and feet.

I had a short evening session down at my club lake on Monday after picking Natasha up from school. I took the minimalist amount of kit and set up a single AAA split shot rig and pretty much free lined a large tiger prawn over some maggots and pellets for a big Perch. I chose a favourite little spot next to a nice set of think reeds where the stripeys tend to hold up in wait for an unsuspecting fry to swim past.

Unintended but welcome

Things went quite well from the off and almost straight away I was into a nice perch of just under a pound. I lost a good one that I think was well over 2lbs to a hook pull on the very next cast. I kept applying the bait and slowly tempted more fry into the swim which was followed by the obligatory perch. I managed 7 in the end with the biggest going 1lb 5oz. I also had a couple of small carp and lost a much bigger one. The eels then moved in and after four of them I decided it was time to call it a night!

Tuesday evening came around fast and I had a pre-planned trip in the diary with a client up the River Wye. I dropped by his house at 4.45pm and we headed up to the river. Knowing only a little bit about each other, it was a great opportunity to get to know each other better and hopefully even catch a fish or two. I'm always dubious of people in this day and age, so with Mathew coming from Thornhill in Cardiff, I made sure I went tooled up and wore my stab vest just in case he tried to rob me or something???? lol On a serious note and joking aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the guys company and I look forward to many more sessions with him over the coming months.

Nice little chub to start proceedings

We stopped on route for the obligatory Costa Lota Coffee and by 5.45pm we were making our first casts into the river. The boat traffic wasn't too heavy but as usual there were a few numpties who were adamant they needed to be just inches off the bank. Anyway, by the time we were finally ready to take on the Barbel, the boats had all bar cleared off. Mathew went slightly down stream of me and fished a single rod and a feeder set up with a River Monster boilie on board. I went for a feeder set up on one and a straight lead and pva bag on the other. Both on the ever reliable River Monster.

It took about an hour before the first bit of action and that came from a nice 4lb chub on the straight lead set up. At least we hadn't blanked I thought. Another half hour passed by with no action and just as Matt and I were talking about carp and barbel and going through a few phone snaps etc. Off went the feeder rod with a superb take that stripped line from the reel. I lent into a powerful fish that kited hard down stream and across the river.

3 times i've seen this fish in 7 months.... She loves River Monster Boilies!!!

It took a good five minutes to finally subdue her and I unhooked another beautiful River Wye Barbel. My 59th fish of the season so far. It was a long looking fish with a very obvious yellow blemish just under the right side of it's cheek. After looking at the pics this morning, it's a fish I caught on the last day of the season at 10lb 3oz and Tash had it at 8lb 10oz on Sept 5th. This time she went 8lb 6oz.

The final bit of action for the evening came a short time later with a slightly better fish of 9lb 1oz finding the net and finishing our lovely sociable evening off. Mathew unfortunately blanked which was strange as he was down stream of my rods and pretty much on a banker spot that I wanted him to fish??? Unfortunate as he fished hard and well.....There's always next time though and despite whooping his arse, he's promised me a re-match soon on one of his stretches....I can see this being a good chance for him to give me a good thrashing!

Booooooommm....9lb 1oz to finish off a tough evening! Well happy with that!

Anyway, lots of interesting stuff going on with the business, with a couple of new field testers coming on board and a few new baits to test as well. I hope your all well and make sure you get out there and enjoy what the final part of Autumn has to offer before the weather gets too bad to get out there!

Tight lines
Keith x