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When we went over the river in town, it looked good, as confirmed by reports on here. I decided to have a sneaky evening despite impending deadlines at uni. Peddling like mad, the entire bike ride to my favourite peg I was thinking 'Please dont let there be anyone in the swim..', luckily there wasnt!

I got setup in a hurry, the river looked spot on, 8 or so inches up and nicely coloured given the last few weeks conditions. There was a fair bit of leaf-litter coming down as expected for this time of year, but it wasnt too bad. 20minutes in and my upstream rod sprung back and bounced about, a small fish was on. After a couple of seconds the fish found some sort of snag, and that was to set the tone for the session! The old slack line trick soon had the fish out and a scamp was netted and returned. The hooklength showed signs of damage so I switched to a bigger hook and big boilie for the downstream spot, and a small boilie on the upstream rod.

As the light was fading the upstream rod was off again, what felt like a better fish. As the barbel was beginning to tire, the downstream rod bent round and started going mental! Well, I shouldn't grumble, but sods law that all this time has passed with nothing but chub, and now I hook two at once! I netted the first fish quickly and secured the big, deep net in the margins and grabbed the downstream rod. It felt like a good fish, not doing anything frantic, but feeling weighty... turned out it was almost exactly the same size as the one already in the net - just over 8lb, roughly. Thanks to the extra water and large net, unhooking them both in the water wasn't too much trouble, even avoiding the lines tangling. 'I wonder if the circus on the south-bound A38 (no not kempsey! the circus opposite the ketch..) needs another juggler' I thought at the time.

Both rods were rebaited and recast; by now it was dark and my brand new isotopes looked nice, gently swaying in the gloom. I had a few massive pulls on the downstream rod, which are almost certainly caused by chub. The 'twitches' have dislodged my bankstick before now so I was hovering over the rods, when I got a bite on the upstream rod. My strike was smooth, controlled, quite well practised considering the amount of blanks recently. Trouble was I picked up the wrong rod! Numpty!

I netted the fish which was a little smaller than the previous two, somehow the hair had snapped off during the fight, but I decided to re-cast the downstream rod which I had inadvertantly struck. Turned out I had snagged bottom 'great' thought I. After a few pulls it became evident that I would have to tighten right down and walk backwards. After turning the handle a few times to tighten up - PING - yep you guessed it, my brand-spanking-new-£10-a-pop-gorgeous-UV-Blue-Muddy-Waters-isotope went sailing towards the water, in slow motion. It landed out of landing net reach, and I had to restrain myself from crying out 'Noooooooooooooooo' in hollywood fashion, arm outstretched. The purple glow faded into the cold murky water as it sank. As if I had appeased the Severn gods with my sacrifice, the river spat out my previously-snagged-£1-a-pop-lead.

As I packed my stuff away a shudder traversed my aching spine at the thought of how many tins of beans I could have bought with that £10 I spent on my precious...

Walking up the bank it crossed my mind what joys my 'trusty' chariot would bring me on the ride home. I mounted my steed and began peddling, but didn't go anywhere. Another poxy gear had snapped. As if that wasnt enough, my baitrunners anti-reverse flicked off in transit, resulting in a lovely birds nest. I finally arrived home, carried my gear into the garage and knocked over a shelf full of tools.

Im filling in my application for the position of 'Clown' at the circus after I finish this post!

Goodbye cruel river!