CAT AND MOUSE GAMES

By John Costello

A 12-10 from the Teme by John Costello

Go to Next Article; Solunar Tables by Andy Humphries

It wasn't until around 1995 that I started to barbel fish throughout the winter months. Prior to this my barbel fishing tended to finish late October, early November and I then went piking for the rest of the season. Whereas most of my summer and autumn fishing is semi-static, nearly all of my winter fishing is mobile fishing with single hookbaits. I very rarely bait swims, relying solely on the attraction of the hookbait. I feel restricted whenever I bait swims and almost obliged to go back and try them throughout the course of a session which means I spend less time exploring new swims. On the Lower Severn there are miles of virtually unfished water which is crying out to be fished. I get a lot of pleasure when I catch from a new stretch or area and over the years an overall picture builds up of different areas which are at their best at different times of the season and even which areas fish at different states of the river. Some areas fish when the river is say no more than four or five foot above whereas other areas are at their best when the river is top of the bank. By sitting in one swim all day you can't find these things out. I will regularly start on one stretch and after a couple of hours decide it's not going to happen, jump in the car and finish on a different stretch. Sometimes past results have a bearing on where, other times it's curiosity, sometimes it's a gut feeling but by fishing solely with single hookbaits I don't feel tied. Each to their own however and if the weather is foul I have been known to sit under a brolly but it is not how I like to fish.

The other reason I fish like this in the winter months is the sheer size of the river. I believe that come the autumn a lot of the barbel settle in an area for the winter and for much of the time they remain in these areas until early spring when rising water temperature and lengthening days can cause the fish to move. The trouble is that some of these areas might be two or three hundred yards long and the fish will move around these areas according to the river conditions. What this means is that you can never be certain that there are fish in a swim and whilst you might be in a good area there might not be a fish within a hundred yards. In the higher water temperatures of the summer and autumn I play a bait and wait game but in the winter the fish are not so active and it might take several hours before fish move into a swim, if at all. I'm certain there are plenty of times when they will happily take a bait presented on their nose but are reluctant to move more than a few yards. So having identified a holding area I will carefully fish my way through it covering as much of the water as possible, although when there is a lot of extra water one is limited by the amount of lead one is prepared to use. I will regularly use four ounces but am reluctant to go higher (it gets too much like cod fishing!) purely to cover as much of the river as possible. Even when the river is ten or twelve foot on the flow in the middle is no more than the often quoted “fast walking pace” so in my eyes the whole of the river is potentially an acceptable habitat for a barbel. Despite what some people in the past have said, the fish in the Severn are not dependent on angler's bait so it is my belief that they will utilise the whole river. It follows therefore that there are as likely to be as many fish in the middle as there are in the margins and the more water I cover the more fish I present a bait to.

One thing that strikes me about the Lower Severn when it is in full flood is that the one area of the river that consistently remains smooth is the middle of the river. I stress that this only applies when the river is at or near the top of the bank. Walking along the river at such times, much of the near margins appear very boily, whole willow bushes are intermittently dragged under by the velocity of water creating huge boils and eddies. Chucking a bait in such areas at such times sees the rod bent double one minute and then a minute later the line is so slack that I have to tighten up to the lead. If this sort of current fluctuation is occurring it strikes me that it must be a pretty hostile environment for a barbel. At such times I believe the fish move out into the main flow. As I'm not prepared to use cod or pike rods and 8 or 10 ounce leads (some do!!) they are safe from me. But there are places where this marginal turbulence is less marked, notably stretches with fewer bushes and even banks, and when the river is this sort of height I head for these sort of areas. The trouble is once you've fished these areas out and they might only be a couple of hundred yards long where do you go from there? I find it very frustrating at such times because it these big floods that bring the water temperature up quicker than anything and I'm certain that the fish binge at such times. By the time the river is within its banks again and comfortably fishable the water temperature is already dropping and a lot of the fish are full. At times I have stood on the top of the flood banks unable to get within twenty yards of the bank and seen barbel rolling out in the middle. Maybe one day I will anchor a boat in the middle and trundle baits off the back with an ounce lead or maybe I'm too fond of life!! It might also be why so few of the really big fish in the Severn get caught when they are at their top weights in the winter, Howard Maddock's former record being the exception!!

Anyway enough of this speculation, my favourite conditions are when the river is between two and six feet on, a good colour and either steady or slowly falling or rising. If the river is rising or falling fast it doesn't fish so well. Ideally I like to catch it when it peaks. Given a good temperature and the above conditions I usually work through an area covering as much of the water as possible and then move onto the next area I fancy. If I'm exploring a new area I will fish through an area that looks or feels right but probably not as thoroughly as an area that I know holds fish, simply to cover as much ground as possible. Just a question of trying as many of the jigsaw pieces as possible. In half decent conditions I'm expecting bites within minutes of casting, if there are fish in the area they find the bait very quickly. Even on a big river the first minutes of the first cast are by far the most likely time for a bite. I guess 75% of my winter fish are caught within ten minutes of casting and the majority of the rest within twenty minutes, although at times I get lazy and stay longer, usually without success.

So what do I mean by cat and mouse games? Lower Severn barbel seem to have a habit of testing baits, note I'm talking about large individual baits and not smaller particle baits where the first indication is usually a three foot twitch on the rod top. Several anglers have commented that they get small indications before they get a hittable bite. I would not like to guess how many of the fish I catch in the winter do so, but it is certainly a majority that have given some sort of indication prior to a strikeable bite. It might only be a slight tightening or slackening of the line or it might be a half - hearted couple of knocks but enough to suggest a fish is cautiously testing the bait. I should state that at this stage I am not one for striking bites unless I am either confident that I will hook the fish or that this is the only indication I am going to get. In my experience striking these half-hearted pulls produces an unacceptably high number of either missed bites or worse pricking fish which drop off. Either way spooked fish and a missed opportunity, which on some stretches might be the only chance I get. By and large in coloured water in the winter I assume every indication I get is a barbel, occasionally chub are responsible but until I suspect otherwise every knock no matter how small is treated as a potential barbel on the bank. At this moment my immediate response is to wait. The last thing I do at this stage is to reel in or re-cast. I have found a fish and I don't want to spook it by doing so. If possible I will hold the rod or line in such a way that there is a degree of slack available to minimise any resistance to a taking fish. Fishing mid-river for example, it is very difficult to have any degree of slack other than by fishing with a big bow in the line. On feeling an indication I will usually hold the rod at an angle and drop the rod towards the fish if I feel any further indications. I love the next few minutes, the anticipation is electric. Knowing that there is a fish probably only feet from my bait gives a sense of intimacy on a river that is anything other than intimate. It's the next best thing to watching a fish take a bait. It becomes a personal showdown between the two of us and on the Severn who knows how big it might be! Then it happens, another indication, probably melodramatic but my heart is often pounding by this stage. This cat and mouse game can go on for some time. Eventually hopefully the fish has enough confidence to take and most of the bites I strike and hook are pretty unmissable. On one stretch a few seasons ago a lot of bites would consist of a steady but very slight increase of tension in the line, not dissimilar to a leaf catching the line. No knock or rattles to suggest a fish. This tension would eventually develop into a steady almost irresistible pull more like a branch catching the line than a leaf. Again not a single knock but striking before this stage saw several fish pricked and lost. Although I've never caught one, I've read that the bites off thornback rays and similar give these sort of bites, almost as if they settle right over a bait and sit on it. However typically one gets the odd single knock. I have timed fish from the moment of the first indication until I've had a strikeable bite and regularly had fish messing around with a bait for up to twenty minutes. It's a phenomenon that I've never experienced on other rivers, certainly on the Bristol Avon you don't get a second chance. That's the ideal situation and I will wait up to five minutes for a further indication. Sometimes I have almost given up hope and then there's a second knock and I know that the fish is back. As long as I'm patience, the fish should be mine.

Almost as common, particularly in daylight or less than ideal water conditions or temperatures, is to get a quick rattle, knock or similar, to wait only for nothing to happen. If after five minutes or so nothing has happened I will lift the rod and twitch the bait a couple of times. Occasionally this works but having moved it out of position and reeled in I very rarely re-cast. Two reasons, the initial indication denotes an interested fish but the lack of any further indications suggests that it is either reluctant or suspicious. Re-casting will not make it any more likely to take except possibly with a change bait. The other reason is that I want to con the fish into thinking it has missed it's chance and that any more tasty morsels had better be taken before they disappear as well. I then move on to different swims and will not re-visit a swim where I have had such an indication for at least an hour. Preferably I will return at a potentially prime time, typically just after dark, but if I could ever remember prime moon times (see the next article by Andy Humphries on Solunar Tables), maybe that could be an influence as well. I can honestly say that it is rare not to get a further indication on returning, not always a successful outcome but in my eyes an essential tactic.

An example: Saturday 26/01/02. The river was 6 or 7 foot up and slowly rising from the rain earlier in the week but there had been torrential rain the day before and it would undoubtedly have an effect in the next few hours. When the river starts to rise fast it invariably switches the fish off but I was relieved to see that it was not at this stage yet. Arrived on the river and was fishing by 11.30 a.m. I started in a favourite swim and within ten minutes or so I felt a slight relaxing on the braid followed by a distinct knock. Several similar indications followed over the next ten minutes until I had a confident pull which turned out to be a 7.15. When I've had a fish in a particular spot I usually spend some time in the area but another half-hour in the same spot produced nothing. I spent the next hour or so fishing the adjacent swims but having tried another five or six swims I returned to the original swim. Ten minutes later in virtually the same spot as the first fish I had another distinct indication. My heart pounded, the fish average nine pounds from this area, this one could be a biggie, don't blow it. Over the next twenty minutes I had a succession of little taps and rattles but nothing worth striking at. Eventually I had a snatchy pull which I struck and missed. Cursing my impatience I furiously reeled in and packed my gear together. Time for a move, the river was still rising slowly but by now it was after 2.00 p.m. and I had to pack up at 7.00 p.m. I planned to go back to this swim at dusk and spend an hour in the spot, hoping I would get a second chance. So where now? The half mile or so above tended to run through very fast when the river is more than say three foot on. But above this the river gradually widened and there was a long steady area which is a certainty for a fish or two when the river is ten foot on. There were more fish in this area and although the average size is a couple of pounds less a big fish could turn up anywhere on the Lower Severn. Two hours later I was wondering if I had made a mistake, despite covering five or six spots I hadn't had a bite. Time was creeping on, it was after four and dusk was just over half an hour away, I wanted to be back in my original swim just as the light was turning. Slinging my rucksack on again I set off back down the river. A twenty minute walk later and I noticed another car in the car park, the only other barbel anglers I regularly see on this stretch. Walking down I was relieved to see they had gone a couple of hundred yards past where I was heading for. Dropping my gear down I had a quick coffee before casting. The upstream of the two anglers wandered over for a chat and although I don't particularly like talking and fishing at the same time this was the crucial first cast and I was reluctant to reel in. We chatted for five minutes but I was expecting a bite at any moment and was trying to dry the conversation up, not that I had anything to hide from Ken who knew the area, but I wanted to concentrate on what could be the last chance of the day. And then it happened, a tap, tap, tap and steady pull and I was in. I love the instant pick-up of braid, I was fishing nearly thirty yards downstream with a big bow in the line in over twenty foot of water and yet instantly the clutch screeched as I connected. Lovely, heavy, hooked the bottom sort of feeling and a few minutes later Ken photographed the end result, 11.09. Whee-Haa as Secretary Steve 'Captain Mad' Chell says!!

So is it the same fish at such times? I think so but I'm can't be sure. It just seems odd that one can fish eight or ten swims without a bite and then to miss a bite or similar in a swim, fish another five or six swims again without joy, return to a swim and get the only other bite of the day. I am sure that I have presented baits to fish in these other swims but for one reason or another they haven't responded and that on a typical day there are only a percentage of the fish prepared to feed. Usually I get enough hittable bites, fishing as I do, to keep me happy but there have been times when the fish get a bit cute and when the number of unhittable bites becomes a problem. Bobbins work but they don't suit my style of fishing in the winter. Too much time setting up every time I move and not practical fishing mid-river. Upstream ledgering certainly works and if I'm getting bites which I'm not connecting with I try it, but it is hard work and requires a much more immediate response, which if you're fishing a three or four ounce lead is too much like hard work for me!! Hair rigs work but they are fiddly and prone to snagging. Likewise changing baits, meatballs, cheese, paste, boilies, they all work. I am happy fishing flavoured meat, but it is just a question of whatever one has confidence in and because I like to move around I want to be sure that whatever I am using is instant. Whilst boilies and pastes are catching a lot of fish these days the cynic in me believes much of their success is due to the efficiency of the rig and the fact that they are different, rather than any magic qualities of attraction claimed by the bait dealers. I am prepared to accept that, with regular pre-baiting, the fish can be weaned onto such baits and over a period of time they can outfish other baits. However such advantages don't apply if one is fishing with single hookbaits and again I don't want to feel tied to fishing those stretches that I may have baited. I really don't think bait is important, as long as you are confident in it.

The fish are over the years slowly learning, gone are the days when I used to have a virtual tug of war with some fish, not striking until the fish had pulled the rod right round and the line was taught. The baits, methods and rigs may change but the real challenge is searching the river until I get that electrifying tap-tap of an interested fish. And that's when the cat and mouse games start.

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