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When I was a lad in the late fifties/early sixties my dad and I used to spend most weekends fishing in a beautiful weir pool on the river Wey in Surrey. Happy, happy days with some nice Roach, Dace and Perch and the occaisional bonus of a Chub. It always seemed to be sunny then or perhaps I just remember the sunny days. More likely that my dad only decided we should go when the sun was out! My dad didn't have a car so it was cane rods (split cane/fibre glass too expensive) tied to the bike crossbars and a three or four mile ride to the river. We never seemed to catch anything big but it didn't matter.

I was given a copy of Fishing with Mr Crabtree for Christmas one year and the chapter on fishing for Barbel always fascinated me. There were no Barbel in the Wey then, or at least I never heard of any being caught, but dad brought home a copy of the Angling Times one day and we both read of Barbel being taken from the Thames. We spent several fruitless days around Walton, Chertsey and Laleham trying to catch one on pieces of cooked sausage but all to no avail. Being young, the lack of instant success was too much to take, so it was back to the Wey and the Roach, Dace and Chub. We both resigned ourselves to the reality that we were not good enough and would never catch a Barbel.

I later graduated to match fishing on the Wey, and the Mole and then to the lower Medway after getting married and moving house. Children followed and, like for so many others, fishing took a back seat for some thirty years from the mid seventies on. During this time my dear old dad carried on fishing occaisionally. He found a little lake in Surrey where he could sit and catch a few small Carp and Tench, he was happy but sadly never caught a barbel before he passed away about 5 years ago.

In 2005 following lots of upsets I decided to go back to fishing. Watching all those John Wilson programmes got me interested again and I had noticed for the last few years that Barbel were now to be found in many rivers. Indeed my local Medway threw up the record fish some years ago as many of you know. I started in September 2005 by fishing a day ticket water on the lower Medway, float fishing because, as a match fisherman of the early seventies, it was what I knew best. A fellow angler told me I needed to either use a swim feeder (which I had used before) or ledger with something called a hair rig. He also said halibut pellets were a good bait. They looked huge to me (14mm) so I used to whittle them down so the fish could get them in their mouths! For several weeks I caught loads of reasonable Chub and Bream using this method and I was happy with my lot.

One quite warm day in October the fishing was quiet and I was just about mustering up the effort to concentrate on my John Wilson (of course!) quiver tip when it gave a single tap and then almost straight away violently bent round. I didn't have to strike, this thing just took off with me in total panic! I was using my old ABU 506 match reel with 5Ib line which had coped with everything I had caught up until then without even using the clutch. Now how did that clutch work? More panic, fish was now steaming upstream and I couldn't remember how to work the clutch and the reel didn't backwind! I had to release line from the spool and play the fish using my fingers as the clutch! I shouted out to the angler upstream 'I don't think this is a Bream'. I remember thinking 'please let this be a Barbel, please let this be a Barbel'. And so it was. After several minutes of the fish steaming upstream and then downstream and several savage lunges under the rod tip a 7 pounder, my very first Barbel, was in the net. How I wished my dear old dad had been there to see it. I was hooked from that day on. Ironically, I have subsequently learned that the beautiful weir pool on the Wey produced some huge barbel in the eighties. I'd love to go back there one day.

spamalot

p.s. I've had a few Barbel since!