With my Target of catching a Barbel from as many rivers as possible this season I eagerly accepted an invitation to join a bunch of my mates on a weekend trip to fish the Dorset Stour.

I have never ever fished the Stour before but was looking forward to the trip and the chance of a big Barbel or 2 as well as a weekend in the company of some good mates and fellow Barbel nuts.

The idea of the weekend was to raise some money for Macmillan cancer care as well as having a great weekends fishing. We had bed and breakfast arranged with Mel Evans at the Royalty View guesthouse, Mel kindly donated all the fees to the charity. We fished the Throop fishery on Saturday and the Royalty fishery on Sunday, with all day ticket monies going to Macmillan. In total well over £800 was raised for Macmillan and Mel and his son Bradley will be handing that over in the next few weeks once they have collected all the proceeds.

The 11 of us arrived on the Throop fishery but after a hearty breakfast at Mels and a few beers the night before many had heavy heads. The river looked well with a tinge of colour and a good pace, I had a quick look round and found a swim I fancied just below School Bridge. The bailiff turned up just as I was setting up and suggested I move one swim downstream of where I was sitting, I wasn’t going to argue, where I had sat looked good but on his advice I moved.

I mixed up a bag of Hemp and Hali Crush and added to that a tin of hemp, using a large home made feeder I lowered in 5 big feeders full of the mix. Having never seen the fishery before I spent the next hour having a wonder and checking up on the group, John Smith had been taken to the local hospital A & E after trapping 3 of his fingers in his chair as he sat down, Ouch !

I returned to my swim and threaded an 8mm “O” onto the hair, filled a smaller feeder with the mix and lowered it into the swim, at arms length I could just reach the gravel area I had baited, which meant I was able to lower in the rig without a splash. I sat down to take in the atmosphere and enjoyed a few minutes of relaxation for the first time that day. A small tap tap on the rod top gained my attention, the indication didn’t develop but  just as my thoughts returned to relaxation the tip pulled round slowly and didn’t stop. The strike met with firm resistance as a big fish slowly moved upstream, a couple of head shakes later it turned and headed towards me.

At this point unsure what I had hooked the fish took some line from a tightly set clutch and my thoughts turned to a Barbel, seconds later the fish rolled on the surface and again went deep, this time it looked like a small carp from the quick look I got. As I gradually gained some line and the fish surfaced a couple more times I glanced the tell tale big white lips of a chub and a huge chub at that. Once in the net I immediately realised this would be a new P.B. for me as it looked well in excess of 6lb.

With Scales zeroed and the unhooking mat ready I lifted the fish from the water and unhooked and weighed it carefully, I fancied it was a big six but when the scales passed the 7lb mark I was over the moon and at 7lb1oz it was a full 15oz bigger than my old P.B. best mate Tom Sayer kindly took the photos for me and we shook hands as we watched the big chub return to its home.

Other than a lost Barbel and some other chub up to 5lb the day had been fairly quiet, but for me it had been a good day, a Barbel would have been nice but hey ho I think I will just settle for a 7lb plus Chub.
The next day was spent on the Royalty fishery, but with the river very clear and a bright sunny day with high pressure it was never going to be easy.  Other than a few small fish and an eel or 2 nobody managed a fish of note.
Many thanks to all those who attended for a great weekend and a special thanks to Mel and Bradley at the Royalty View for their kind hospitality over the weekend.