Big Fish Column: Autumnal rainfall to stimulate some serious barbel feeding

John Perry (L) claims his £750 prize from Sportfish team member, Campbell Thomson.

Rain, rain and then more rain! Local rivers, already beginning to look in decent late autumn shape, were given a huge boost last weekend when the skies emptied a few weeks’ rainfall in a few hours.

It was a full-on deluge, and you certainly wouldn’t have wanted to have been out fishing in it, but with a good push of water and all of our flowing waters now fining down in relatively mild temperatures there is going to be some great fishing in the week ahead.

Barbel boost

The recent rainfall will certainly stimulate some serious barbel feeding, but catches were on the up ahead of the rain with the most notable fish a huge Thames specimen of 18lb, which fell to Langley-based Dylan McLoughney. Dean, a novice barbel fisher, landed the beast from the Thames near Reading with a bloodworm boilie bait. The river, local beats in particular, are producing some great fish and must be a good outside bet for the next British record barbel.

Barbel fishing on the River Loddon has been a little patchy this season but Woodley angler Dean Collis recorded his best ever fish during an after dark session on the river last week. Dean presented a tuna-flavoured boilie in conjunction with pellets and crushed boilies to fool a fish of 12lb 4oz, which he brought to the bank with 12lb main line to a 15lb braided hook length and size 8 hook.

Big Thames bream

The arrival of autumn always signals the end of peak bream time on the Thames and although the occasional fish will always put in an appearance during spells of mild weather the big catches of summer and early autumn always hade with tumbling water temperatures.

One such occasional fish did put in an appearance last week and, weighing in at 8lb 12oz, it was a very big fish for the river, where the average stamp is usually around 4 to 5lb. The big bream was netted from a swim at Pangbourne by Maidenhead rod Simon Thompson who was actually fishing for carp with a boilie on a size 6 hook to 12lb line.

Simon told me, “Like most Thames carp anglers I catch more than a few bream and I usually return them without fuss but this one was so big I had to weight it in.”

Prize trout cashed in

Moving along to game fishing and the team at the Sportfish Game Fishing Centre were delighted to hand over the second £750 cash prize to trout fisher, John Perry, who caught the remaining big money tagged prize trout in Haywards Farm Lake.

The two headline prize fish have now both been caught but another fish is being tagged this week to start the competition rolling again – and there are also plenty of tagged fish in the lake that can win you a free day’s fishing so it’s well worth a visit.

As far as the fishing is concerned, venue boss Jonno Randall told me that the water quality on Haywards Farm Lake is getting better and better with the temperature now down to 10 degrees with an excellent and ever-improving water clarity. 

As far as catches are concerned regular rod Colin Jordan caught 21 rainbows and a cracking 4lb blue trout in two fishing sessions last week, with small fry patterns doing the damage. It still pays to keep on the move until you find the fish, many of which are being caught very close to the bank as they chase fry.

The best fish of the week, a 6lb 14oz rainbow, was netted by Keith Bailey and the rod average was a good 4.2.

Any anglers wishing to report catches may contact me at ian@bigfishtrail.com