The Sessions- Oct 2025

Barbel guiding and Bream struggles

September started really well with a massive 19-08 Barbel , another huge fish from an excellent well run fishery in Kings Weir, the rest of the month was a struggle as I continued with my 16+ Bream quest.

I had a lot of guiding planned for October and another Kings Weir trip to look forward to at the end of the month.

04 October 2025 – Walthamstow

I had a guide trip planned for Barbel on the Trent but storm Amy had arrived with huge 50 mph winds and rain, not ideal conditions for a guide trip but very good fishing conditions. I was preparing the tackle and bait and keeping in touch with Justin when he asked to move the trip due to the weather, I had a window on the 17th so we re-scheduled and I had a free weekend, so decided to continue fishing for a big Bream. I made arrangements to meet my friend of many years, Paul Elt, down at the gate with the chance of a social and some big fish.

When we arrived everything went to plan and I paid for the tickets while Paul minded the barrows that were on the pavement by the gate. The wind was a strong westerly, so we knew which bank to head for to get some shelter and it was the better area to fish, the reservoir wasn’t busy and we got the swims we wanted approx. 50m apart.

I hadn’t fished the swim I chose so had a cast around with a lead, the reservoir is very uniform but it’s always worth checking first just in case there is a snag or something not quite right, I settled on an area at 11 wraps. I baited up first with my bait mix, a pint of each, casters, hemp, 2mm pellets and approx. 50 10mm boilies, that went well but I was very conscious of the Tufties lurking nearby. I started with all three rods on 45g method feeders, one on 3 fake casters, one on 10mm boilie topped with a fake red maggot and the third on 10mm boilie topped with fake corn.

All the baiting up was done and the three rods cast out just before the big winds started, we were quite sheltered but I still had to double peg the bivvy to be sure, then they started…..The Tufties were on me again, much to Paul’s amusement he wasn’t getting any trouble, they were relentless again and sitting just out of torch range and waiting for me to put it down before drifting over and hammering my spot. It must be the casters being very visible, I love using them but do have to suffer with birds.

I had a plan, and had a can of corn I was going to spomb over another swim, now Paul was still laughing and then asked me to watch his stuff while he popped to the loo, of course I agreed and as he walked away out of sight I walked up to his swim with the corn and my rod. Now I love a wind up and was laughing away and knew he would see the funny side but couldn’t bring myself to do it, so walked back down past my swim into the next and spombed the corn out at similar range to try to draw the Tufties away. When he returned, we had a laugh about it all while the ducks continued on my bloody spot.

I had two bites in the afternoon, a Tench and a Roach both on casters and I waited until dark before putting more bait out, the torch was super effective in dark and kept the ducks away. I made one other change moving up to 70g feeders due to the under tow caused by the wind and we went into the night confident we’d get some action.

Well it didn’t really take off, Paul had one single and I had two Bream at 11-01 and 12-05 and we were away by 08:00 as I had another guide session on the Trent.

05 October 2025 – River Trent, Cromwell

I drove home swapped the tackle over, refreshed the cooler box and headed up the A1 to meet Andy Degville at Cromwell for 13:00. I donate a guide session to the raffle at Barbel Society event each year and Andy won this years.

Andy is already and accomplished Barbel angler so this session would be different to most guide trips, so the first thing we did was walk the section and I introduced him to each swim. It’s a great section and can be fished in all conditions with some swims better depending on the levels at the time, once we’d done that we set up in swims next door to each other.

We spent the afternoon chatting about all things Barbel fishing from my approach to his trip to Spain for the Comizo Barbel and as it started to get dark we got the rods out. I had started in the afternoon with one for Zander and fished that into dark catching a Pike and having a possible Zed annoyingly come off in the edge.

Andy was fishing and ok, so I tried something I wanted to do for a while and that was to master rolling meat in the dark. The swim I was fishing allowed me to cast up stream and roll down approx. 30-40m as there were no snags and bare gravel, it was the perfect spot to try it. It took two casts to get the weight right by adding more plastercine and then I added bait and cast out to the channel I wanted to fish through. It was a learning experience, rolling with so much line out made it more difficult to keep in touch with the bait and in future braid may be a better option, but I had four bites missing one and landing three doubles at 10-15, 11-06 and 14-05 which was a very pleasing result. By 22:30 I was getting tired so put the static baits out for the night and baited with BBB.

The night went quite well, and I had fish at 7+, 12-00 and 12-05, with the Mitten Crabs not being too bad. Andy had a good session with five Barbel, with three being doubles to 10-07 to round off a great session.

16 October 2025 – River Trent, middle

I was due to meet Tony Shep, another accomplished barbel angler whose wife had got him a guide session for a xmas present a couple of years ago and we finally got it arranged. Tony has been doing well this last two seasons catching some good fish to 17+ and was confident with his approach, so on this trip he wanted to look at location and swim mapping so we arranged to meet on a section neither of us had fished before.

I arrived first and drove the section with a few areas in mind but more crucially I wanted to be away from other anglers so we could be reasonably close together to look at my thoughts on location. I picked an area that gave us what we were looking for and is an area where the fish I was looking for on the section had been caught before.

Tony arrived and I got the leading rod out, attached my Deeper and went though my methods of locating an area to present baits. Once we’d done that I took the Deeper off and attached a lead and went through my methods of really understanding the bottom and recognising the depth variations.

The area we felt best was just before halfway out at 10.2 feet deep, so we got the rigs out on the ever-faithful BBB, put chairs in the middle between the two swims and sat chatting all afternoon. Tony is the same age as me and good company, we always have loads to talk about and the time flies by. We ordered pizza for tea and sat well into dark chatting.

On this trip the fishing wasn’t great, we both had Bream and Chub and one Barbel each but it was a good session in good company and we’ve planned some more for later in the season.

17 October 2025 – River Trent, tidal

I packed the swim down mid-morning and drove down to the tidal to meet Justin Towns, I arrived early so I could have a good look round, the river was very low and the area I intended to fish I felt was to low so I drove further down the flood bank to an area I haven’t fished before but ticked the boxes I was looking for, a nice deep margin with a steady flow.

I parked the van and got the leading rod out and spent an hour looking at five swims with the Deeper and a lead, once I was happy I picked the two I felt best and set my bivvy up. Justin arrived and I went up to meet him and took him down the field to the swims.

When guiding and meeting someone for the first time you never know about their physical capabilities and fishing experience so have to pick swims that will suite both, fortunately I’d got swim choice right this time, Justin was quite happy to navigate rocks and a sloping bank and was an experience angler.

I went through my usual approach on a new guide session with a tutorial on location and tactics, and then made up some rigs for Justins rods and got him fishing.

It was another good session where we sat chatting into dark, I had three fish to 10-08, but more importantly Justin had a nice fish at 12-11 before midnight and had another three doubles through the night. He didn’t wake me up to help with weighing and photos so we only had net shots of them with one being bigger than his first fish.

That finished another good session, especially in the low river conditions.

18 October 2025 - River Trent, Gunthorpe

Once Justin left for home I packed my swim down and headed to Gunthorpe to roll meat for a few hours. The river level was good for rolling but the anglers in the other swims were all struggling so I thought I’d give it an hour and see what happened.

I ended up fishing for four hours and had four singles with two 9’s, I kept going despite not many bites and I’ve experienced this before and a big one turns up, but on this occasion it didn’t so I headed home to watch the Arsenal.

24-26 September 2025 – River Lea, Kings Weir

I arrived to find the level up a bit with a tinge of colour making it look good, however with a week of lots of wind and rain bringing the leaves down I knew it would be tough. I’ve written my thoughts on the leaf fall before, but to recap it my least favourite time of year, I’m sure they give of a smell that knocks fish off feeding, and they don’t like the leaves continually rolling through a feeding area. But working full time I don’t get to pick and choose so just go fishing regardless.

This was another quiet trip with just one bite, a small Barbel at approx. a pound and a half and lots of branches as they came through. Still, you never know on KW, the fish I had in Aug came out at 20-11 a few days before my session, so I’m always hopeful the next bite will be special.

I’ll be back again in December when I return from Spain hoping for a KW 20 plus Barbel.

Until next, tight lines and be lucky 😊

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