First cast at Horseshoe Bend / PB / PB barbel ?

[nige_LS7]

Had me PB barbel yesterday. 8-5,  just my 9th*  barbel ever, all in the last 2 months,  so the p/b is still creeping up nicely



So there I am, about 5.30 pm, just cast in my meat into a lovely swirly eddy just off the main flow on the furthest peg on Horseshoe Bend, glance at the footy results on me phone, glance at rod tip ... promising curve then the tttzzzzzzzzzzzzzz of the baitrunner, count one two, LIFT. Downstream run halted, front drag now locked tight, another run  for the willows, no room for error over there, letting the rod do the work, absorbing the lunges, get it back into the middle of the swim then I can loosen that drag again a twinge and  let it tire itself... with any luck this is a decent fish, feels maybe 6 or 7?   Wait a minute!! It's tail-walking to try to shake the hook!!  Barbel don't tail-walk .... it's a pike!!

Better get it in then before the braid goes.

Soon in the net, 7-5 pike p.b.  Picture in next post below  (yes I thought it looked a bit bigger than seven pound too) 

What about the p.b. barbel in the photo you ask?  Well that was 3 hours earlier in the Hammerton Mill field  

Of course the tussle with the show-off pike destroyed the fishing in that peg, and as it happens I didn't catch another fish in the next 3 hours in nearby pegs, or when I returned to that one later... 

... but two pb's in a day can't be bad eh, especially when one is actually the target species!















*10th if you count a two-inch baby fish the other night!

[nige_LS7]

Mmm  what's that sauce on your spam nige?  Don't use it again if you don't want to catch a battle-scarred old pike (you should have seen the bite out of the other side of it). 




I'd already had another strong run earlier in the day in the second field, where something with very sharp teeth had taken the same bait and immediately sliced off my mainline above the hooklength....

My conclusion is that pike are partial to a marinade of powdered worm, garlic & chilli on their Spam (which I put on the night before, marinaded then frozen overnight)

(but the same thing happened to me last March at Topcliffe with krill glug on the spam, so maybe they just like ANY marinade!!)

[Eddie]

Good fish for the nidd nige, one like that in the "barbel cup" in a few weeks would take the trophy easy!

Eddie.

PS,just check this out for bubbles in your swim nige lol.

[nige_LS7]

Someone off here will have a double out of the Nidd before too long.

Doubly bubbly.

[ianmc]

nice barbel nige looks like it has been well fed lately

[rushy]

Nige,
That is a cracking fish mate and a belter for Hammerton. In fact I don't know of a bigger one being caught from that stretch. Nice to see all your research, effort and dedication paying off. A very big well done mate

Rushy

[nige_LS7]

Aug 16, 2015 21:26:09 GMT rushy said:

Nige,
That is a cracking fish mate and a belter for Hammerton. In fact I don't know of a bigger one being caught from that stretch. Nice to see all your research, effort and dedication paying off. A very big well done mate

Rushy

    Ha, there was me thinking that you'd had your 8-15 out of Hammerton, but when you told me that, I went back to your report
leedsdasa.proboards.com/thread/2727/curiosity-pays-off
and it seems I hadn't read it carefully.

Well I'm honoured by your comments, but the size of a single fish is mostly luck, surely.  I just returned to where I'd hooked and lost a fish at the same time of day before...

[rushy]

Aug 17, 2015 13:45:25 GMT nige_LS7 said:

Aug 16, 2015 21:26:09 GMT rushy said:

Nige,
That is a cracking fish mate and a belter for Hammerton. In fact I don't know of a bigger one being caught from that stretch. Nice to see all your research, effort and dedication paying off. A very big well done mate

Rushy

    Ha, there was me thinking that you'd had your 8-15 out of Hammerton, but when you told me that, I went back to your report
leedsdasa.proboards.com/thread/2727/curiosity-pays-off
and it seems I hadn't read it carefully.

Well I'm honoured by your comments, but the size of a single fish is mostly luck, surely.  I just returned to where I'd hooked and lost a fish at the same time of day before...

As Gary Player said "The more I practice the luckier I seem to get "

Yes, it is good fortune if you cannot see the fish and a big one snaffles your bait before a little 'un , but you've quie clearly put the effort in Nige ................ take the glory mate ..... its well deserved

[quint]

Well done Nige, cracking Barb, but that Pike, the head on it, it does look bigger than 7.5 like you say, tail walking aswell, did you chuckle like Wilson when he has a walker?

[nige_LS7]

Aug 17, 2015 20:22:55 GMT quint said:

Well done Nige, cracking Barb, but that Pike, the head on it, it does look bigger than 7.5 like you say, tail walking aswell, did you chuckle like Wilson when he has a walker?

Haha I remember that infectious chuckle from his vids...I wish I was 'cool' enough to just chuckle like a veteran,  but I just held on for the ride, at the same time thinking I wasn't that bothered if s/he did throw the hook, just thinking I don't mind as long as s/he hasn't swallowed the hook.

But it turned out that unhooking the no 10  was a piece of cake right in the scissors of the jaw, and the sink braid hooklength was totally unscathed this time.

Shall i start a new thread on pike that take baits meant for barbel & what we can do about it?  A p-m from another  member about that very topic makes me think it's not just me.

Nah I'll start it here: I'm convinced that pike are going for lumps of Spam that their senses tell them is fish-based or worm-based, because of attractants I've used, and I don't enjoy having my hooklength bitten off by them,  so for a while down there I'm going to try just using _hemp_ and non-fish meal as the main feed, with plain meat on the hook, and no fishmeal/pellet/krill/worm ingredients at all.