This time our sole (excuse the pun) goal was to catch a barbel, which Andy had never caught before.
We set off for Coalport near Telford for the River Severn. This is a notoriously good place to catch barbel. Although the river is low because of the fantastic summer we’ve had, we wanted to give it a go.
Andy packed up his car with loads of gear. For bait he brought a concoction of all sorts including turmeric spam which had spent a year in a freezer, which his wife wasn’t overly happy about! He also had spicy crab and spicy sausage pellets. Delicious!
We got to the river at about 1pm. The best times to catch barbel are dusk and dawn. Andy set up 2 rods that had alarms on so you know when you may have a bite.
Obviously as my brief was a watching capacity sitting in a lovely fishing chair! Here I am in my typical pose. As Andy says this is me in the height of relaxation. Eating my Waitrose lunch (salt beef sandwich with mustard!) by a beautiful river, reading Middlemarch by George Elliot (way too hard for me by the way). I also had my obligatory flask of tea (game changer!)
One of the first things we saw was a pike eating a duck which was delightful!
Look at these beautiful surroundings:
One thing I’ve noticed about fishing is how friendly the other people fishing are. A small group came over to see how we were getting on. Unbelievably the day before one of then, who had only been fishing for four months, caught a 14 pound barbel!
After fishing for around 7 hours with no joy whatsoever we were about to pack it in for the day at about 7pm when the alarm on one of the rods started going crazy. We both jumped into gear as this was a really good sign that we may have a bite. Andy let me try and reel it in which in my opinion was a massive risk given that this was his first barbel. They fight really hard and this one was no exception. After a lot of guidance I actually managed to reel it in. It was an amazing feeling. Andy thought it was a small one, about 4 pounds, but to our amazement when we managed to get it into the net it was huge!
9 pounds 10 ounces! We were so happy, especially Andy. Obviously he needs my expert fishing skills to finally catch a barbel!
As were walking back to the car we bumped into two guys who has driven about 3 hours from Chester to do night fishing. That’s dedication but it’s the best time to catch barbel. They could not have been happier for us when we told them all about our catch. Nice people the fishing community are.
We drove to the Indian restaurant we’d booked, had a lovely curry (warning, the naan breads in that neck of the woods are the size of dustbin lids), then drove to our hotel. Naturally I forgot toothpaste so had to clean my teeth with soap which was delightful. My small brain didn’t register that the hotel was next to a 24 hour petrol station with a huge shop!
We left at about 6.30am to start fishing at dawn but we had absolutely no joy in the morning and gave up at about 1pm. The weather was much too sunny.
We were so happy about our catch the previous night that it really didn’t matter. To be honest it was so beautiful there by the river with the sun shining that if we’d had caught nothing we’d have still really enjoyed it.
Our next trip will be to the River Wye at some point which is another barbel hotspot. Watch this space for an update. Andy wants to do an overnight in a tent but that’s a bit hardcore for me. I can’t ready my book and eat my Waitrose sandwich in the dark!!
Here is a gallery of this beautiful part of the world.
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