I have to say I won’t be sad to see the back of Summer 2010 – from a fishing point of view at least! After a spring fruitlessly chasing tench in a gravel pit in Cambridgeshire over the summer I’ve fished locally mainly for carp on my local canal. Short evening sessions have produced a mixture of chub, roach and bream but no carp. After about ten trips I decided to follow up vague rumours of good eels and on my first night caught two, the first was 3lb, the second bang on 4lb and a new personal best. Whilst eel fishing  I have received an “alarm call” at about 6am on every trip The culprits have proven to be rather nice perch, the best weighing 2lb and 2lb 2oz, each time on small roach deadbaits. At some point over the next few months I intend to target these perch and find out how big they get.

I’ve also had fruitless trips after barbel on my local river. Back in July I spotted a couple of reasonable fish and decided to try and catch them. The barbel are not particularly big, maybe 8-9lb but it was a nice challenge to catch one of them. I started baiting with Sonubaits Elliptical pellets and soon had a swim full of chub and bream. It was fascinating watching them feed in the clear water and in six trips I only cast in twice – both times when the barbel were visiting the swim and feeding. On the second occasion just as the larger of the barbel was approaching the bait a small chub nipped in and before I could pull the bait out of the way it had hooked itself. If the river stays clear I’ll have another go before the weed dies back and the barbel move to deeper water. If you’ve never fed chub in clear water and watched their reactions I really recommend it – you can learn so much that can be applied to situations where you cannot see them.

On a quick catfishing trip I thought I’d cracked it – a small perch was taken and a huge patch of bubbles appeared – I struck fully expecting a big cat to tear off only to find a pike of about 8lb had taken the bait!

As we entered September my fortunes changed and after baiting a few swims for barbel over a couple of weeks I had my first bite and soon after a short very fat barbel of 11lb 2oz was having its photograph taken. Hopefully there’ll be a few more to follow as the temperature drops and the rivers get a bit more water.