A tale of two rivers

By Pete Falloon

It must have been around 1985, when would have been about 12, that I first saw them. I’d been roaming the banks of the Upper Medway at Fordcombe with a school friend, Paul Tomlin in the summer holidays, trying our luck with the chub that could be seen sipping flies in the shadows of the deep pools or hovering in the current between banks of streamer weed. Of course we never even managed to hook them, with our clumsy 6ft rods from Woolworths, and even clumsier tactics, but that’s another story. Frustration had set in and we started to trudge up towards Chafford Weir, negotiating nettles, cow-pats and over-friendly cattle on the way, dragging our miniscule rods behind us. About two hundred yards down from the weir, Paul stopped and stared intently down into the water. The water was low and clear that dry summer, and even we could see any fish that happened to be lurking in the shallower runs.

As we stooped down over the high bank, a small shoal of barbel and chub raced in line over the shallow gravel, most of the chub well over five pounds, and the barbel considerably bigger. It left us with our jaws dropped open, barely able to speak. Somehow we woke from the stupor and foolishly splashed our floats out at them, which they didn’t spook at, instead manoeuvring round our tackle like it was a traffic island, in a rather patronising manner, if fish can be patronising. The truth is that I didn’t see another barbel for another 14 years, though I did manage to catch a few chub bigger than half a pound.

Time passed by, and once I’d got to university, my interests somehow got diverted and I didn’t really fish much at all for quite some time. In 1996, I moved with work to Hertfordshire, and as it happened, a stroke of bad luck a couple of years later made me remember what I’d been missing. My tackle had been kept at my parents house in Kent, and there’d been a series of garage thefts, one of them bagging practically all the gear I’d accumulated over the years. I was quite surprised at what a shock it was, especially as a couple of custom built fly rods that were birthday presents went missing. Still, every cloud has a silver lining, and the insurance pay-out was even more of a surprise, though this time a pleasant one. Amongst the shiny new objects I’d ordered was a John Wilson Avon rod, and I intended to find somewhere local to use it!

I knew from reading the weeklies as a teenager that the Bedfordshire Ouse was a noted barbel venue, and started to search the internet for a club to join. Dave (aka Dr Barbel), a mate from work was also interested in a spot of river fishing, so we joined up to Vauxhall AC and then wondered what to do next. I didn’t really know that much about barbel fishing, though I’d caught a few chub trotting, over the years, but the weeklies used to be full of reports of fish caught on spicy meat. Dave and I made a few fruitless trips to the Vauxhall stretches, and were a bit dismayed at the empty nets our trotting and feeder tactics turned up. I thought the river must be practically empty of fish – our floats hardly budged an inch, though we did see a few small chub, and Dave caught a minnow to my great delight and even greater derision!

Most of the other guys on the bank (and there were a surprising number of them) also seemed to have dry nets, although there were several accounts of barbel actually being caught! Wonders never cease. Weirder still were the type of angler that I named ‘severe barbellists’, who fished in pairs, and sat behind matching two-rod baitrunner setups on mini rod pods, sitting right next to each other, usually with a radio blaring out the footy results, fiercely guarded bait boxes with strange substances in them, and usually not a lot to say. In fact extracting grunts from them was usually quite a feat. The idea of night fishing was pretty alien to Dave and I, and neither of us really had the gear to do it, so to see isotopes on these guys rod tips only made the whole thing even more surreal.

All this was to change, but everything in good time. The river was often so busy at weekends that Dave and I would try to take days or afternoons off to get a bit of peace and space. This kind of behaviour seemed to be actively encouraged by the weeklies too, so it had to be a good idea, and perhaps with less pressure midweek the fish would readily grab our baits. Anyway, one such day was a Wednesday, the 13^th of October 1999, though sods law had it that Dave couldn’t make it, and I drove up north of Bedford on my own at lunchtime. There weren’t a lot of anglers on the bank that day; I’d decided to wander around a bit and went both up and downstream in search of fish, finding nothing. Late in the afternoon I settled on a swim where I could get down to the waters edge, a hundred yards or so downstream of a viaduct, and just at the bottom of a very shallow stretch. On the far bank was a deeper, slower section of river behind a line of rushes, before the channel bent round to the inside and a large cattle drink. I fiddled around quite a bit before settling down; we’d been using six pound line as I reckoned that was about right for chub, and we were unlikely to catch any big barbel, or so I thought. The strong current was making my quivertip joggle about, even with the ¾ ounce lead on the end, which I thought was enormous. I found this quite frustrating and thought it would interfere with bite detection. I’d also brought the idea of hair-rigging with me from carping in small lakes at home in Kent, and thought with my coloured, specially fried and curried meat, I must surely have the edge. Cutting edge tactics indeed!

Anyway, just like back at Fordcombe all those years ago, the lack of action fuelled a period of boredom and the sun was dropping; I was thinking about setting off. I put my rod up on the bank and went to chat with the guy fishing downstream of me, opposite a small bush. He’d not had a lot of luck and began to spill his woes about somewhere called ‘Adams Mill’, apparently a place where all the barbel lived in one swim, and worse still this swim was reportedly always occupied by a certain high ranking society official! I found all this rather odd, but nonetheless stayed a while longer. I explained I was off soon as it was getting dark and had no night gear – but he suggested I could stay as I could use my baitrunner and listen out for bites; it was also apparently ‘low-resistance’! Why not, I thought, more so because he reckoned dusk was the best time, and I knew sod all about barbel fishing then. The only problem was that the baitrunner had 8lb maxima on it, far too heavy for shy river species I thought, so I tied on some 6lb maxima as a hooklink of a couple of feet.

So I returned to my swim, plopped the bait back in, and ripped up some of my curried meat and threw a string of pieces down the flow near my bait. I started putting my gear in order as the light was fading, and was just clambering back down the bank into my seat, when the rod tip made a near right angle with the butt, and line screamed insistently off the baitrunner! ‘What the....!’ was my first thought, but I picked up the rod and began to tighten the line. Whatever was at the end was very heavy, and not really moving; it certainly seemed a lot heavier than the 15lb mirror carp that was then the largest fish I’d banked. I was convinced that I was snagged on a big lump of weed and whatever had taken my bait had got off. But a bit of steady pressure and shark-style pumping produced something that slowly yielded and then screamed off downstream in a totally unstoppable manner. My heart was thumping. The Avon rod seemed to be coping OK, though I was in serious doubt about the 6lb bottom by this time, which was singing at a gratingly high pitch. It probably took another 5-10 minutes to work this monster level with me, and another few to get it off the bottom, where it lay in the current, only just in reach of the net. A barbel, at last, a barbel, flanks gleaming in the sunset, a huge barbel, and finally into the net she slipped. I was elated. I didn’t know quite what to do, so quickly weighed it, and was dumbstruck when the scales registered just over 11lbs; I then elected to stake out a carp sack and put the fish back in the water and seek help for a photo.

A 6lb fish from my first season on the Ouse

Well, or so I thought – I’d borrowed my girlfriend (now wife)’s camera and it turned out to have no film in it. I won’t repeat the expletives here. The guy downstream was still in place, and was totally amazed at my crazy revelations; what’s more he had a loaded camera. ‘That’s the nicest barbel I’ve seen come out of here, mate’, he said. He also reckoned it had blue eyes, though I’m not so sure about that! A few photos were taken, and I gave him my address so I could get hold of those precious shots. He thought it was worth me staying on, but I was totally knackered and totally elated. I thanked him and made my way home with a ridiculous grin glued to my face – I’d done what I’d come to do.

Winter madness on the Ouse

I waited and waited for that photo, but it never came. Maybe he lost the bit of paper; maybe the photos never came out, I may never know. It took quite a while to forget about those photos but eventually I did. Whatever, I was totally addicted now. Dave and I made quite a few more trips ‘up north’ after that, though the only success for me was a 6lb fish a few weeks later, and apart from a couple of chub, the rest of that winter was blank, bleak and hard. It didn’t stop me fishing though; my mother had become very ill that winter, and the river offered peace, escape and solace from a difficult time at home. I’d invested in some night gear, so some very long and cold sessions followed, quite what the point of it all was I’ll never know, but it seemed to help, and I met some interesting people on the banks. Time to think and time to be alone has always been important to me, and those sad and lonely fishing trips were only sweetened by the simple beauty of the winter landscape. My fishing almost seemed to be mimicking my feelings; I tried practically everything that winter to get a barbel on the bank that winter and it all failed. The cold was, at times, completely numbing; perhaps it was what I needed at the time. I’m glad to say that eventually there was a break in the weather, and my mother made a full recovery from her illness, which was totally unexpected and honestly not far short of a miracle.

The next season, Dave and I decided to try out some other bits of river, in particular MKAA’s stretches. Beginners luck struck again, and I was pretty chuffed with my first trip as I netted a 2lb chub! Not bad for a first visit I thought, the last winter considered. But the night was yet young, it was the second week of the season and not dark until quite late. I’d also roamed around a lot and got totally confused with the venue maps, venturing to a very breamy looking stretch in one direction, and spending hours fishing a tiny side stream in the other. I was quite surprised to find the real river in the end, and wandered most of it, settling on a small undercut on a high bank above a shallow, narrow and streamy stretch. I dropped the bait in from upstream and kept well back from the bank, following the spiced meat with a few freebies. It was getting late by now, and I was thinking of the drive home. I was about to ring home to say I’d had a good day and would be on my way, when deja-vu struck, the rod slamming round to the left and the reel screaming. This time I thought I was a bit more prepared, with 8lb line throughout. This fish was totally different – very fast, and very powerful, and screamed off for nearly 20 yards downstream, with me following it, dragging the net behind me. After a long battle, a 12lb 12oz barbel was netted and weighed, much to my astonishment; I was chuffed as it was with the chub, and hardly expected to better that first ever barbel from the year before. I’d love to say that night was the shape of things to come for the season on that stretch, but it wasn’t to be. Dave had one stroke of extraordinary luck, but that’s his own story. I managed one more barbel that year of seven and a half pounds on a vile smelling home made boilie, but not much more. That year we also found (courtesy of a net acquaintance) the delights of the upper Lea and its small barbel, which at least allowed us to catch fish on a regular basis, though they were only 3lbs at the biggest.

The 2001 season meant a return to MKAA waters, and a new stretch introduced by the same fishing friend met through the internet. I’m sorry to say I didn’t hook a single Ouse barbel that season, and have to admit I got pretty disillusioned with it all. You might say most people spend half their lives trying to catch double figure barbel and that I’ve had some incredible luck. The truth of it is that amazing luck made consistent blanking even harder to stomach, although one of the highlights of 2001 was actually seeing barbel in the close season on the Ouse.

I returned to the Ouse in the late summer this year, and something in the river had changed. It was much less pressured than the season before, and spotting barbel became commonplace for me, whereas before it was a real rarity. Finding those fish meant I was able to locate and catch fish more consistently; this season I’ve had four fish of 10, 6.5, 5.75 and 5.25lbs plus some cracking chub and a 10lb river common carp on my own bait. Perhaps concentrating on one stretch and learning about the river has helped, I don’t know. I don’t know what the future holds, I’ve recently married a wonderful French girl and one day we may move to France. It seems like I might now be able to do that without too much regret; the skills I’ve learned this season seem to have helped me unravel some of the mysteries of the Ouse, and more to the point, the mysteries of the barbel that lurk there. Maybe part of the addiction belongs to that childhood fascination with those elegant creatures gracing the Medway all those years ago.

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