A Trent Monster
Although still warm at times in Sept, the lovely hot summer was now behind us and autumn was fast approaching with some cooler days and colder nights, this usually means fish start fattening up for winter so a great time to be out fishing. In Sept I had some poor and difficult trips and one good one with Barbel to 14-09, and as I wrote last month Oct started rather well 😊
02 October 2026 – River Trent, Middle
I had three a three-night session planned which would have been rolling meat in the day and moving upstream fishing for the one fish I’ve been targeting at night, but the recent rain made me change plans. Although not a deluge it had raised the level enough to make rolling meat very difficult in my chosen area so I dropped down a few swims to a spot I could present well with leads and set up there for an 18:00 start.
EU laws have made some ingredients illegal for animal feed so unfortunately BBB will be no more as Mark can no longer get it some of the ingredients imported; I have some left in the freezer and lots of hook baits to keep me going but would need something new going forward. Pandemic will always have a place in my bait bucket; it’s been fantastic since Madbaits launched it over 10-12 years ago and still catches me loads but I always like to have two good baits I can rely on. Mark is always thinking and tinkering with bait and he has come up with another called Swan Mussell, so a trip to the factory saw me leave with 5kg, a bottle of food dip and some hookbaits. This trip saw me try them for the first time.
I started with 15mm Swan Mussell (SM) hard hookers on both rods and put some SM and Pandemic through the swim.
The session started well with three fish to 12-05 on the new bait before midnight.
03 October 2026
I suffered two hook pulls in the early hours along with two more fish to 11-05 and then the bites just stopped, and I managed five hours solid sleep.
It was a warm morning, clear and sunny, and it went up to 18 degrees later in that day, feeling much warmer with the sun straight in front of me and crazy temps for October!! I got the leading rod out and started looking for á new spot amongst the rocks and found a lovely clear spot close in and to the right. I changed the right-hand rod to a large piece of spam and lowered it onto the spot with a handful of finely chopped spam over the top. There are more Crayfish there now and they are big with no small ones, I can only assume the fish are nailing the juveniles and very few reach maturity, so to date they are not a huge problem, but regular checks of the meat rod were needed.
Early afternoon the meat rod hooped over with a large single which was encouraging, and another piece was quickly lowered onto the spot. Three hours later it went again and had jammed the lead on a rock. I have written previously about snags and how to overcome snagged leads and fish and I put it into practice and carefully figured out where the lead was jammed and got it out. The fish felt very heavy, one of those ones where you just know it’s a lump. I played it carefully to the net and it went in the net and straight out before I could lift it up, I have to admit having seen how big it was I had a nervy moment until it went in the second time and I could lift it up and onto the mat, and it looked huge and very fat!! The fish was in stunning condition and was a new Trent PB for me at 18-01, what a brilliant result!!
I reeled in for a bit after that fish, chatted to Julie and friends, cooked a meal and just took it all in, had the footie on the radio and relaxed for a couple of hours, and by 19:30 I was ready to go again and got the rods back out, one on spam and the other on SM.
The SM produced the bites again with two singles before midnight.
04-05 October 2026
I suffered another hook pull and landed a 10-03 and it was a chilly night, dropping down to 6 degrees and had definitely slowed up the bites.
I fished all day without a touch, I tried rolling meat but it was still too high, and tried float fishing without success. By late afternoon I’d run out of spam so both rods went out on the SM for the evening and night.
I managed another four fish to 12-12 on the SM to finish a brilliant session and packed up first thing on the Sunday morning.
15 October 2026 – Middle Trent
I’d come off another long 10 day stretch at work and had a guide weekend coming up, so I logged off the work laptop and drove up for my first Zander trip of the autumn / winter before the weekend.
They are so nomadic and the big ones not as common as people think so it’s tricky to know where to start so I drove up the A1 with an open mind. There was an area on the middle Trent I wanted to try last season, but it was always to busy on the opposite bank to encourage me to stay, so with it being a Thursday I went there for a look.
It was empty and the other side not busy at all, so I walked the section looking for signs of bait fish and features. I finished up setting up in a swim with a large over hanging tree on the downstream side and lots of small bait fish topping in the margins and I put two rods out on dead Roach for 17:30.
I’m still not totally happy with my Zander deadbait rig and have been playing around with it for the last few seasons, it’s hard as location is the tricky bit and then when you do find them, they are so finicky, I find I miss a lot of bites. I based it on my Barbel rig, using Amnesia or a stiff fluro carbon as the boom section and supple wire for the hooks, that had been working ok and I had my best fish with this rig, but after suffering one bite off from a Pike on the fluro on the first cast this session I knew I had to change it. So, I set up with 20lb wire as the boom and will see how that goes this winter.
16 October 2026
The night passed uneventfully and I caught up on sleep. I reset the rods at first light and had a Pike straight away and by 09:00 I felt I had to move so moved down to another likely looking area with bank side cover both sides.
I fished there until 16:00 without a bite, a very common scenario when targeting Trent Zander.
I packed the van and drove down to Collingham with the first stop being the chippie for a cod and chips dinner to keep me well fuelled, and then onto the river to get the van and gear ready for the weekend.
17 October 2026
It was a cold night and morning at 6 degrees, what a change with winter coats and hats on to start the session. Chris and James arrived at 06:00 and were fishing within the hour, they have both been with me before, so location and rigs were all sorted and I baited up while they got their tackle set up.
It warmed up a bit to 13 degrees, but the northerly wind ensured we kept our coats on most of the day. The Pandemic hook baits did their job, and we had a very enjoyable day, with both catching lots of fish. The Bream were there in numbers and we had quite a few with lots of Barbel amongst them, Chris had a PB Chub at 6-00 and doubles to 11-14, James had a number of doubles all around the 10 to 11lb range to 11-05.
I tried the float a few times and into dark without a touch, the Barbel were just not in that area, so I was back in the van to re-charge for the following day.
18 October 2026
Ant and Phil arrived at 06:00, Ant had been with me before, but this was Phil’s first trip but he was an experienced angler and was well prepared, so again I set about baiting up whilst they got ready.
It was a cold start again at 6 degrees but was a lot warmer during the day as it wasn’t so windy.
The fishing started slowly but soon picked up mid-morning and ended up being a better day with well over 50 takes. We had a lot of Bream and another nice Chub to Ant, and the bigger Barbel were feeding with a better average size to both anglers.
Phil did really well with lots of doubles with two different fish being a new PB at 12-05. Ant had a great day and I was really pleased for him, he is clearly a good angler and takes in everything I’ve shown him and then gets on with it doing it all himself and, on this session, he got his reward. He’d been doing well all day and then hooked a fish we could see was a better one, he took his time and when I saw it surface, I could see it was a good one but didn’t say anything until I got it in the net, I’m not sure who was the happiest with his new PB at 15-00 😊
It was a brilliant day in good company and was the last of my summer / autumn guide sessions and a great way to finish.
23-25 October 2026 – River Lea, Kings Weir
The weather had certainly changed with colder nights and lots of much needed rain. As usual I’d been tracking the weather fronts and was getting the feeling the stars were going to align for this session, with a low-pressure front coming in with lots of wind and rain. Additionally, it appeared the Crays had slowed down and were not as active, so I drove over full of confidence.
I arrived just before the rain (storm Austin) started at 13:30 so got the shelter up quickly and then back to the van for the rest. On the way back to the swim my confidence took a hit, I stopped for a chat with Loretta and Barbera, and fuss with the dog Bella, only to be told an 11 and a 19 were caught the previous night 😒.
I was really pleased for the angler but with there not being many fish it could be possible there would be no others up in the weir pool and those two would be unlikely to feed for at least 24 hours.
Still, I’m a glass half full angler and always try to stay positive so got myself set up and fishing.
Both rods were set up my usual rig, with the only change being the braid section was swapped to 16lb Mirage to stop the Crays tangling the rig up, both with 15mm BBB hard hookers to start with. I baited quite heavily for KW putting in 50 boilies, my thoughts were if the Crays were active then surely one boilie should fill up a Cray so I may be able to feed off any that were present.
I started by checking the rigs hourly, and then every three hours on the first night, the Crays were there but I always had bait on and just changed any that were nibbled down.
The river had come up and there was quite a bit of rubbish coming down but it got better during the first night and morning.
The first night passed without a bite but the conditions looked perfect, so I still felt I’d get a chance. I put another 50 boilies through the swim at first light and check the rigs every two hours through the day.
Storm Boelo started properly around 13:45 and it hammered down for hours, long storey short, the weather was atrocious with wind and rain, the river flew up and there was weed and branches coming down that kept dragging the rigs out of position and I blanked….
But did I enjoy myself….of course I did 😊
30-31 October 2026
I finished a brilliant month spending the weekend with Julie.
My daughter Taylor got engaged to her partner Ben in Rome earlier in the month, so Julie and I took them out for a celebratory meal on the Friday night and we had a lovely time.
On the Saturday Julie and I went for our first night camping in the van and walking at Ivanhoe Beacon. The walk was long and great exercise and the weather was lovely and sunny but the evening dropped down to be very cold, I cooked a steak dinner and we ate and drank under the stars but by 20:30 we were in bed in the van keeping warm, it was freezing, but we had a great time and are planning lots of trips out next year 🚐
Next up for me in Nov is two weeks in Spain fishing for Catfish.
Until next time, tight lines and be lucky 😊
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