With my bream campaign coming to a close for the year it was time to start on the river.

The Ribble throughout most of September was running low and clear and I like to take advantage of this by doing some float fishing for the barbel.
My first morning session went quite well. Bait for the day consisted of 1 pint of casters and 2 pints of Sonu hemp n corn.
I began to feed the swim with a good pouch full of hemp n’ corn and caster each run through and within an hour bites came. I hooked 11 barbel during the morning but due to bad luck (or my incompetence) I only managed to land 6 fish up to 7lb.
By lunch the swim went quiet so I called it a day and went home with my first barbel back ache of the season, if you have ever fished the float for barbel you will know what I mean!
My next trip out was an afternoon session. It seemed to take ages to get the barbel interested but after 2 hours of continuous feeding my first bite came. Again I caught 6 barbel but this time no losses. It just goes to show the importance of continuous feeding, keep the bait going in and bites will come.

One of the targets I have set myself for the winter is to catch a 2lb roach from the Ribble. Into October and finally a bit of rain came. This lifted the river enough to colour it and with it fining down nicely I headed to the bank with roach in mind.
On arrival it looked spot on, a tinge of colour and low light levels meant it was perfect for the roach.
I chose a nice even paced swim with a depth of about 5ft with the depression being about half way across the river. My set up consisted of a 15ft sentient rod which I tackled up with a 4gram bolo float to 0.13 powerline and an 18’s hook. Bait for the session was 2 pints of bronze maggot and 2 pints of Sonu hemp n’ corn.
After steady feeding for an hour I began to get bites. It was by no means a bite a chuck but after 3 hours I had amassed about 15lb of fish with roach to just over a pound and dace to 10oz with a couple of small chub also.
The fish were in lovely condition and its good to see the silverfish doing so well in the river again, very promising for the future and the winter ahead.