In my last blog I said how glad I was to see the back of summer and I haven’t changed my mind! I’ve been fishing a new stretch of the Trent and after an early success of an 11lb 2oz barbel it has been hard going.

I’ve had a mixture of blanks and trips where bream seem suicidal for Sonubaits Elliptical pellets and boilies. One recent evening I had bream from three different swims with a biggest of 6lb 2oz. On another trip I had a 5lb 6oz chub that nearly pulled the rod in and for a moment I was convinced it was a good barbel!

Last week I tried a different approach. The bream seemed to be more of a problem when I put a bit of bait in so I decided to try a single hook-bait with just a small PVA bag of crushed boilies nicked onto the hook. It failed to prevent bream in the first swim but in the second swim the hook-bait remained untouched for about 30 minutes. Just as I was thinking of calling it a day the rod took off downstream and a barbel was on. A large clump of drifting weed caught the line as I was playing it but this gradually slipped down to the lead and I was then able to net a good barbel. It weighed 13lb 6oz and was my biggest to date from the river.