Monday evening l visited Little Mousham, the Cemex Lake that produced the British Record crucian so that l could start pre-baiting the swim l raked a few weeks back. Last week l was unable to keep the feed going in as the swim was occupied by a carp angler so l had to drop the feed into the river Blackwater which wasn’t a problem as l have high hopes of catching a big barbel from it soon. After pre-baiting the lake l dropped into the swim on the river lowered my pellet hookbait and was soon playing a modest chub of around 3lb 8oz. Three more bites followed in the short one-hour session, which resulted in another chub around the same size. Good fish but not the barbel l hoped for.

On Tuesday l had booked the day with Onlinefishing.tv to produce another of my new series of videos. This time the target was barbel and with the rivers low l knew things might be tough. The day dawned wet and l hoped that this might have coloured the river but unfortunately not.

We headed to a new stretch that l hadn’t fished for years and began to rove around, dropping the ‘Method-lead’ in a few likely looking areas. As hookbait l decided to use one of the new Sonubaits Barbel & Carp Hookbait Pellets in the Hemp and Spicy Sausage flavour wrapped in paste and l wasn’t to be disappointed. Apart from a missed bite in the first swim, it wasn’t until the eighth swim that the next indications came but the way the tip was moving, chub were the culprits and it didn’t take long to drop one in the net weighing 5lb 1oz. A great start but l really needed a barbel so dropped some bait into this swim and moved on.

Three more swims proved fruitless before the same swim again showed signs of fish. Chub, this time slightly clued up on my rig were once again present, however after a few slight amendments to my terminal tackle and by moulding some paste around the pellet the tip pulled round again, this time from a bigger specimen of 6lb 1oz! With time ticking we headed downstream visiting the odd swim, however it was the very last swim, one most would walk by that caught my attention, so l dropped a bait quietly into position and literally ten minutes later as l was about to call it a day the tip flew round and after a hectic fight in such a tight swim an immaculate barbel graced my net. Weighing exactly 12lb it was the icing on the cake and one of those rare ‘red-letter’ days.

Friday night and after some much needed rain l headed to the Loddon, hoping that the river would be carrying some colour, unfortunately it wasn’t although when l left at 7am it was beginning to colour up. The pellet rod went untouched up until 10pm when it was replaced with eel rods, which also were quiet. Changing over at 5am my Sonubaits Hemp and Spicy Sausage pellet covered in the same paste ripped off at 6-50am resulting in another big chub weighing 5lb 7oz.

Looking at the weather it seems that autumns just around the corner as the temperatures have started to drop this week and my hopes of a big eel are starting to fade away.