Big Fish Column: Monster barbel at midnight for Pevy

Photo: Edward Porter, above with Sportfish team member, Nick Clewlow, netted 23 trout to 12lb - and £250 in cash – at Haywards Farm Lake

Last week’s extraordinary temperatures, which helped make February 2019 the warmest February on record, made for some fascinating fishing. Bright and sunny T-shirt weather followed by chilly nights is not a recipe for good fishing but as the temperatures dipped slightly and still warm, but cloudy and wet, weather arrived the fish really got their heads down.

Enter the monsters

I say it every March, but the back end of the river season can be very tricky indeed. Some species, such as pike and dace, will already have spawned or will be spawning. Others, such as perch, will have shoaled for spawning and yet others will have started to migrate towards spawning sites.

Nothing is ever as it seems in March, known swims will fail to produce and big fish will often show in surprising areas. It is also a time of year when the weather can vary from Arctic (remember last year’s ‘Beast from the East’) to positively tropical, as we saw last week.

With big female fish holding spawn and feeding hard in preparation for the event, it is also a time for monsters…

Thames Monster Chub

There have been some terrific chub captured from local beats of the Thames this year but the best of the season to date put in an appearance at Cookham when Mike Horwood netted an absolute beast of 8lb 4oz to smash his personal best by over 2lb.

Mike fished a small piece of meat on a size 10 hook to a 5lb hook length and 6lb main line with a PVA bag of pellets, meat and maggots to provide the attraction. The fish came on his only bite of the day from a deep hole in the river bed just a rod length out.

And Thames monster barbel

With the Kennet, and now, it seems, the Loddon well past their sell by date when it comes to barbel it is reassuring to see some great fish caught from the Thames and in the week that saw a huge Thames chub there was also a huge Thames barbel reported. The captor was High Wycombe rod, Ryan Pevy, who only got back into fishing this season after a long break - and what a return!

Fishing into darkness, Ryan employed a big open-end feeder packed with hemp and pellets with garlic-flavoured pellets on a size 12 hook to 12lb line. Striking into a take at around 11.45pm it was getting on for midnight when he was finally able to lift the big fish onto the bank and weigh it in at 19lb 15oz. There is a little secrecy around Thames heavyweights but this fish is, to the best of my knowledge, the third largest Thames barbel ever caught.

What an incredible fish!

A £250 trout

Little did Edward Porter know just how successful his most recent session on Haywards Farm Lake would be, not for him a few pulls and a couple of good fish, as is usually the case on the lake, but he netted 23 trout to 12lb - and £250 in cash!

The 23 trout resulted from his fishing skills but there was a little luck involved with the £250, which came about because one of the trout was one of the fisheries prize tagged fish, worth a cool cash prize.

If you are heading over to Haywards Farm there are more tagged fish to be caught and although catching 23 trout is clearly not impossible, the rod average for the week was 4.2 with an average weight of 3lb 1oz.

Edward is pictured with the prize trout and Sportfish team member, Nick Clewlow, handing over his cash prize.

The week ahead

I never like to call the last week of the river season but with warm, cloudy and damp conditions forecast we might just go out on a high for once! Here’s hoping anyway.

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