The campaign to restore and improve this section of river using tons of aggregate and plenty of hard work was spearheaded by the irrepressible Chris Turnbull.At the time of the project’s inception I was just a mere disciple, hands firmly clasped around the handles of my woefully inadequate wheel barrow, trying desperately to cross the river and deposit my puny load of gravel on top of a newly built riffle. In those days, we really did do things by hand! The majority of the work being carried out by the 35 strong syndicate. It was during these initial stages that our first stocking took place, a thousand baby barbel from the NRA Calverton Fish Farm (incidentally paid for by the syndicate members). If my memory serves me correctly, our primary intention was to create a barbel fishery, the habitat improvement and biodiversity plan, hopefully, having a positive domino effect on all of the rivers flora and forna.This in my view, seems to be pretty much what has been achieved, except the barbel have grown slightly larger than most of us had expected!
During the syndicate’s formative years, there was plenty ofwork to be done. On the fishing front some of the members got interested in the roach and occasionally the odd small barbel would get caught accidentally. In what seemed to be just a few short seasons these little fellows started to grow. Soon regular catches began to feature, particularly from the mill pools. Once these fish reached about seven pounds, there was no stopping them! In no time at all the first doubles started appearing (actually, it was nine years after the initial stocking). It was during this period that I was unable to fish much, although happy to pay my subs and attend the working parties (a perfect candidate for a syndicate member don’t you think!) It would be some time before I could join the upsurge in barbel fishing, as other more pressing elements took precedence in my life.However,my interest was soon to be rekindled when an old cottage on the cusp of the river valley came firmly into focus. All I needed to do was convince my fiancee how much ‘she’would benefit from living in a rural setting! I believe it was on our first walk along the water meadows that I pointed out how fortunate ‘we’ were to live so near to the river. And that beneath the surface of this particular river there were barbel, and these barbel were getting bigger! “Why don’t you have a fish for them,” she said. Now, I knew I couldn’t let her down. I kept an eye on the river that summer and during occasional fish spotting trips, the barbel would show themselves on the gravel shallows. Some of them looked well into double figures.
With limited time available and knowing some of the syndicate members had already cottoned on to the whereabouts of these fish, I decided to wait until optimum conditions prevailed. Hopefully we would get a decent flood as autumn approached, When the rains did finally come it was late October and unfortunately due to work commitments I was unable to capitalise on the conditions, although I did manage to walk along the majority of the stretch and in doing so, gave myself a reasonable idea of possible high water swims the barbel might prefer. I can remember being quite shocked at how the extra water affected some of the swims regularly frequented by barbel. To my amazement a large percentage of the river seemed totally unsuitable. In fact, this particular stretch of the Wensum can be quite moody and unpredictable in times of flood. I felt the fish may have been pushed downstream to quieter and more sedate areas and made a few mental notes of swims to try in the future, hopefully, if we got anymore rain in the weeks ahead.
Surprisingly I didn’t have to wait that long, and so it was, in the first week of November 2002, with the river once again over its banks, I retraced my steps from the previous recce.
By late morning I must have fished at least six swims with zero to show for my efforts.The next move brought me to an area of the river, the majority of which, had turbulent water bellowing up from the riverbed. I had seen barbel there in the summer, but couldn’t believe they would tolerate these conditions. Interestingly, upstream there were several metres of smooth steady flow.The near bank run was protected from all the debris coming down the river by a large bushy willow. The bait, a large lump of flavoured luncheon meat, was lobbed unceremoniously into midstream. Moments later, the rod tip slammed round. The ‘thing’ on the end of my line gave a thump and slowly moved across the current, into the stronger flow away from the lee of the willow. Initially, I had some difficulty getting the fish to the surface, everything exaggerated by the flood water. Twice, the fish rolled on the surface only to ‘sound’ back to the riverbed. Eventually I waded out to the edge of the bank and slid the net under a huge barbel.
A ‘phone call later,my good friend Steve Croll joined me, and with the weight of 15 lbs 6 ozs confirmed, he did the honours with the camera. I remember how we marvelled at that great fish, whilst letting her recover in the flooded margins. Eventually she gained enough strength to swim away, the tip of her tail disappearing on the fringe of the floating sweet-rush.
Shortly after this capture I heard on the grapevine, that other ‘fifteens’ had put in an appearance. Chris Turnbull had also had an incredible catch, from Sayers, fishing in clear water conditions before the floods had arrived. He managed to catch a 15 lbs 3 oz barbel with two others both over 13 lbs in the same sitting.There clearly were other big fish to be caught. That first flood water monster gave me all the confidence I needed to get out on the banks whenever the conditions were suitable. Using the same traditional tactics as before, I was fortunate enough to catch another deep bodied fish of 13 lbs 12 ozs. Simon Johnson was the only other barbel angler I saw on the banks that winter, catching some lovely fish to 14 lbs 10 ozs. As these fish were clearly growing, and there appeared to be several different doubles I formed a plan to have a serious barbel campaign in 2003-4. Unfortunately I didn’t really get into gear until the July. I was aware that some of the syndicate members had already experienced early season successes. The majority of these catches coming to pellets, pastes and ‘off the shelf ’ boilies. Bearing in mind I was going to fish through the season, I felt I needed a good quality bait and so I plumped for one of the HNV mixes from the innovative John Baker stable. During the next few weeks I introduced small quantities of boilies into any areas I thought the barbel might frequent. Incidentally this was one of the hottest and driest summers on record. The only place I could locate barbel in any numbers, was in the mill pools at the head of the fishery, obviously attracted by the decent flows and high oxygen levels.
On a sweltering day in late August, I was feeding a shoal of about eight barbel, three of which looked like they could be over 10 lbs. I had these fish going potty for pellets. My intention was to wind them up for a short period, (if I fed them for too long they would become nervous) then introduce a few of the new boilies. All of a sudden out of the deeper water, two massive barbel appeared, side by side and strangely in mid water. They looked truly enormous.
Introducing bait into that area, I simply followed the now well documented comfort zone strategy, creating a safe feeding area and intercepting the fish on route to this. The details of which were gleamed from Stuart Morgan’s excellent chapter in John Baker’s brilliant book Modern Barbel Baits and Tactics. I decided to prime the swim for four days before commencing fishing. Mainly short evening sessions. My approach was to simply cast between where the fish spent most of their time and the baited area. My terminal tackle consisted of a 1/2 oz back lead positioned a metre from a 2 ounce semi fixed lead, braided hook length and a size 8 hook, with a single boilie attached via a short hair. The set up completed with the addition of a small PVA bag of boilies. The first trip produced a sprightly 9 pounder and within a week I had managed to catch six barbel including two doubles, the best being 11 lbs 8 ozs.All had fallen for the same tactics.Around this period other regulars were also fishing the pools, but to my knowledge there had been no sign of the pair of mega barbel. That was until one evening when I was called out to photograph a cracking 16 lbs 6 oz fish, caught by Bob Chambers, one of the fishery’s bailiffs. The very next evening I was back at the pool. I must admit, I didn’t really expect much to happen, but was encouraged by my wife not to deviate from my original plans. The all important first cast was made and it can only have been a matter of seconds before I had a bite and found myself connected to a very determined fish. After giving a powerful account of itself, a hefty barbel lay within the folds of the net. When I eventually laid this long, mint conditioned, totally barbelicious creature on the mat, it dawned on me this was clearly a different fish from the one I had witnessed the previous night. I was simply stunned…
Thankfully, Chris Turnbull and Tony Bidwell were also on the river that evening and duly obliged with cameras and scales, to record a new Wensum record barbel of 16 lbs 10 ozs. I think we probably thought at that point the fishing had peaked. However in the next few weeks it actually improved, with several different doubles moving up the river and into the pools. The members ensconced there, experienced some
incredible fishing.
With so many big fish around, the angling pressure had increased, subsequently I became interested in how I could change my approach to keep catching. I had now entered the modern barbel scene and become a fully fledged boilie basher. Although pellets were still very affective, particularly in clear water, I had gained so much confidence in my bait I was loathe to change it, but obviously certain tricks evolved in order to outwit the fish. When boilies were first introduced and the barbel had got a taste for them, I simply presented a single bait on the hook with a p.v.a bag of boilies connected, and scattered the free offerings by hand. The problem being when the fish came across any small groups of bait, one usually had a hook in it! To alleviate this and build confidence, I started to bait up using three boilies threaded together with p.v.a string and began introducing them to the swims. In theory the barbel would become used to safely eating these little clusters. I then fished a single bait with two boilies on a stringer. This ruse accounted for six doubles, the biggest 12 lbs 6 ozs.Obviously, like any good method this soon lost its effectiveness.
In late September Chris Turnbull caught a personal best of 16 lbs 7 ozs. Then in October Tim Ellis pushed the river record up to 17 lbs 1 oz.Two days later I was fortunate enough to catch this fish weighing in at 16 lbs 9 ozs. I was now employing the awesome catching abilities of the single bait. Shortly after this autumn epoch, temperatures dropped and typically after the first frosts, a quiet period ensued. At the beginning of the new year the dedicated Martin Brown caught a well deserved 17 lbs 8 oz fish and yet another Wensum record had fallen.The next barbel window arrived in February when, during a lovely mild spell with the river in full flood, I caught a pleasing winter brace weighing 10 lbs 8 ozs and 15 lbs 4 ozs. Both these fish fell for an instant, highly flavoured, paste wrapped boilie fished as a single bait in mid river. The same method was also to account for four more barbel at the end of the season, two being low doubles.
At the start of the 2004-5 season, some new members were welcomed to the syndicate. Surely, this must be like 42 getting the golden ticket to ‘Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory’! I am fairly certain most of them caught double figure barbel, testimony indeed to the quality of the fishery (there are now around seventeen different doubles in this stretch of river). In fact, during the summer months, several of the syndicate members caught personal bests, at least three different fish had weighed in at over 16 lbs. The river was in great shape, the combination of regular rain fall creating good flows and a gentleman’s agreement not to fish directly into the snags meant the fish had little need to leave the main river for the pools.
At this stage these visually aware creatures started to show a pronounced preference for smaller baits. In view of this, on an atmospheric October day, I fished with half a boilie hard against the eye of the hook in conjunction with a few half baits on a stringer. This method produced a satisfying three doubles, the biggest, an unknown fish to me weighing 14 lbs 14 ozs and a bonus 6 lb chub. Then with summer behind, us little did we know what the wonderful Wensum had in store for us, as the big barbel were about to go on their autumnal munch. In a relatively short space of time, four anglers were to catch three different barbel weighing over the 17 lbs barrier. Firstly Russell Francis, a bailiff and one of the original syndicate members caught a 17 lbs 4 oz fish known as ‘One Pec’.Then on a rainy and mild October evening, I was fishing upstream of friend and syndicate member Steve (Voley) Allen when I was lucky enough to catch a 17 lbs 1 oz barbel. This individual, identified by a red blemish on one of its flanks, had put on two pounds in weight since the start of the season.
The rains continued and during the third week in October, ultimate giant barbel conditions prevailed, with mild air temperatures day and night and a river temperature of over 50 degrees. Barbel stalwart Stephen Harper, in his first season in the syndicate, was about to break the Wensum record with a massive 17 lbs 14 oz fish known affectionately as ‘The Beast’. (Stephen caught the first Wensum double back in 1977 and believe me, time has done little to dampen his enthusiasm!) Three days later Peter Stolworthy was rewarded for an early start when he latched onto ‘One Pec‘ weighing in at 17 lbs 8 ozs.
This was barbel fishing par-excellence, however, all good things must come to an end and with the onset of winter, quieter times were ahead. Although a couple of respectable catches were made, the most notable being Jimmy Bigden’s 15 lbs 12 oz prize on the last day of the season.
No one can predict the future, but I think we can safely assume the progressive journey of this stretch of the Wensum has yet to reach its full potential. I personally feel very privileged to have been a player on this premiership barbel river. Everyone involved in this success story can be justifiably proud that their hopes have surely now reached fruition.
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