This weekend I thought I would take advantage of the low and clear river conditions to do a spot of float fishing. I decided that I would spend one day after dace,chub and roach and the other after the barbel.

Bait for my first session was two pints of super scent hemp and one pint of casters. It was only going to be an afternoon session so this should be plenty.

The swim I selected was nice even paced water of about five feet in depth so I tackled up with a Preston Innovations 6 no 4 wire stick float and fished it with a bulk of no 6 shot about 2 ft from the hook with 3 no8 shot  as droppers 6 inches apart above a size 18 hook. The idea of the bulk shot being to get the hook bait down through the smaller dace which were on the surface an hopefully get the better roach.

I fed the swim with a pouch of hemp and a few casters every cast and used a single caster hook bait and it was not long before bites were coming regular.

I managed about 10 pound of fish in a couple of hours with roach and dace to about 10 ounce. I’d had a pleasant afternoons fishing so I called it a day at that and went home happy.

Bait for the following days barbel session would be three pints of hemp, two pints of casters and a bag of 4mm S pellets.

I selected a swim which I new produced a good quantity of average size barbel which would be good fun on the float gear.

The swim required me to fish the far bank so I tackled up with a 15ft rod with 0.17 powerline mainline to a 0.15 powerline hooklengh and fished a 3.5gram loaded waggler which was shotted with no8’s shirt button style.The hook was a size 16 and the hook bait was single caster or 4mm S pellet. I fished the swim for a couple of hours and caught three chub to 4 pound and a lovely roach of 1.12 but no sign of a barbel so a change of swim was made.

My next swim choice was much easier to fish with the flow being right under my feet and about 9ft in depth. I tackled up the same only this time I used an 8 no 4 prestons domed wire stick with a bulk of no4’s 18 inch from the hook with two no8 droppers. The swim was a joy to fish as I could make the float do exactly what I wanted almost like using a pole. I began to feed quite heavily with super scent hemp and caster and after my third trot through the float buried and I had my first barbel.

What a session it turned out to be!.In the next five hours I hooked 36 barbel and landed 30 of them!,all between three and eight pounds. I hooked a fish just about every cast,my arm felt like it was going to drop off but I had had the most memorable days float fishing I had ever had.

Well happy!