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share to pinterest labels 40riverschallenge barbel barbel fishing r blackwater wednesday 9 september 2026 pastures new and old foes since the r anker had thrown up the greatest of all fish i had already made the decision to sleep for the night before making the journey to the r dove which is was once again going to be a first a river i have long since had designs on fishing but never got there so with the anker being around half hour north it is fairly close having never fished the dove it was once again going to be a reccy trip once i had finally found the river after a call to ade who has been hugely supportive this last few weeks i set about making the long walk to the top boundary to then have a good look and see what i was faced with after the recent rains the dove was up a bit and heavily coloured this i felt for stalking which i had in mind was not ideal so i very quickly decided to take on a static approach and set about fishing each good looking spot for around 45mins and then move i didn t realise that the dove had crayfish and they were everywhere i could not get away from them so after 6 swims and a good few hours i walked my gear to the centre of the fishery and then went rolling meat amazingly within a couple minutes i had a brief follow from a barbel about 7lb which looked like it was going to take the meat and bailed out at the last moment the fish then drifted out of sight under a bush and regardless of how hard i tried to get that fish to commit i simply could not manage it for the rest of the day i moved around and feeding lightly i hoped i would come across a barbel unfortunately that did not happen and around 10pm i packed up 3hrs 50min drive back home but a blank on the dove didn t matter a jot that anker success was enough to let me forget the rest a few days later i made my way over to the blackwater to carry on my pursuit of a double which unfortunately was met with the same level of nothingness which i am constantly subjected to on this particular river and two days back i made another trip again with an outside chance to make it happen but all i did was continue to remove crayfish which i seem to be good at that but very little else is happening on there even carp chub and bream seem to be completely missing i really do feel like the window on a blackwater double is closing the otters are having a profound effect even if they aren t eating all the fish their presence is moving stocks around so fast i can t get lucky and find them not through the want of trying but one thing that is true is that i will continue to keep trying i won t give up on there not just yet september 09 2026 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels barbel barbel fishing r dove tuesday 1 september 2026 river anker double that s a wrap my season just seems to be going from strength to strength last seasons total of two completed rivers had been equalled before this incredible result now here s how it unfolded following on from my last visit a couple of weeks ago much has happened that stuff that falls from the sky rain decided to put in an appearance and my god we have needed it when i arrived on the anker at around 2pm i could very quickly see that the river was about a foot higher and carrying some colour stalking fish was now out of the question but felt it would offer feeding fish some additional cover during the daylight hours i opted for a pellet approach as i so often do on smaller rivers robin red pellets 4mm 6mm and 8mm in small golf ball sized pva bags and 8mm on the hair i m not sure how much of this made a difference but this is how my approach differed initially my hair when i tied it was quite long as i had misjudged the required length and was long enough to accommodate 3x 8mm pellets rather than the 2x i normally use i fished with this setup for around 3hrs within a bite in a couple of swims so i opted to strip that rig down and tie a similar rig with a shorter hair so the 2x 8mm pellets were butting up against the bend of the hook this presentation i do prefer more subtle difference but may have made all the difference fishing a crease just off the far bank flow i placed my 2oz lead and left it as long as i could to allow any feeding fish the opportunity to find the bait over the course of a couple of hours i topped the swim up with more pellet as there is a healthy population of silvers and chub so i couldn t imagine the pellet would have been around long and with that consistent flow of free offerings going in i hoped i would bring something upstream from a very fishy looking near bank cluster of reed and far bank bushes where the water drops away from 4ft to around 7 8ft the perfect holding area for a barbel or two during my time there the fishing was halted briefly owing to some really powerful showers which would have made the remainder of my visit very uncomfortable so ade and i hopped into the car to seek shelter as we could see the storm creeping ever closer across the flatlands enough time to hot foot it to the car both times with just seconds to spare just one of many super looking spots ade arrived shortly after i arrived and we sat back chatting thankfully towards the evening the clouds slowly broke up enough so that the threat of rain abated around 1910 ade opted to head off home to grab dinner and no sooner he got half way home my rod gently tapped twice to alert me to the presence of something then out of nothing the rod tip slammed around violently and the centrepin went into meltdown the vortex whipped up by whatever had just picked up my bait was huge the brutal power of this fish saw me simply trying limit the amount of line this fish took more than 30 metres of line was stripped before i managed to get a modicum of control my heart was in my mouth because i was praying it was a barbel and not a carp the sheer power was startling once i had the fish turned and slowly coming upstream i still didn t know what it was that was until it rolled in front of me my eyes couldn t believe what i was seeing it was very big i ve had some very big barbel in my time but this was pretty special however i had to remain vigilant as this fish still had plenty more in the tank and for another five minutes or so this fish lunged wallowed lunged and wallowed some more over the cord of the net twice too and back out didn t do my nerves any bloody good at all but on the third time of asking i finally got the reward for my efforts in the confines of my net it was big a few minutes later ade arrived to the sight of me punching the air in jubilation but how big was she i didn t unhook her or lift her or anything until ade arrived as i wanted to rest the fish after such an epic battle when ade did get himself ready and i laid out all my kit set up the camera wet the sling and mat i was ready or was i when i began lifting her up and out of the river it dawned on me this fish was even bigger than i first thought the depth of it was really impressive for a late august barbel when it was laid on the mat we both really got see it all and that was when ade said to me that s a river record fish right there james i had no reason to think otherwise it was very big i lifted the scales with them facing ade and he read off 17lb 7ozs included the sling and i was in shock of course deducting the weight of the sling 11ozs off the total she settled on 16lb 12ozs indeed a new river anker record all recorded and indeed confirmed by ade this fish is the old record which was set in 2022 at 16lb 6oz i was simply speechless these moments in angling come round once in a blue moon and amongst all of that it sets me a new personal best for the species which has been in situ since october 2020 what a way to do it simply magical once that was done a quick couple of photos were taken and then got in the river to have one last moment before she vanished once again into obscurity hopefully not for so long this time a new personal best and a new river record for a river i d only visited once before that s what dreams are made of new river anker record 16lb 12ozs magnificent and of course that is the 33rd river i have had a double figure barbel from the target is really and truly in sight september 01 2026 14 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels 40riverschallenge barbel barbel fishing r anker monday 31 august 2026 r anker pastures new after my success on the r tame it was time to move on after slipping back that beauty i retired back to the car and had a good nights sleep with one of the windows half cracked open i could hear the chorus of owl chatter as i drifted off nice sunrise came and at the alarm i was already up and tea brewing such was my eagerness to get moving on with another day of angling ahead i packed away all my wet gear and off i went goodbye tame and hello anker a totally different river much more intimate winding anker from latin literally translates to winding river its the sort of river i love to fish the whole stealth approach and minimal disturbance is right up my street and within half an hour i was seeing barbel and chub one barbel possibly around 8lb and another which looked close to that magic 10lb mark with it being so low and clear i could see the fish easily with my glasses and it was exciting to see my target species so quickly but given the clarity was it going to be easy to catch them the short answer was no the chub were in a ravenous mood and within a couple of hours i managed 6 to around 4½ pound and given that level of disturbance i had concluded the barbel had tucked away so i moved on to try find fish elsewhere i spent the rest of the day dotting around searching for barbel but also where it is quite choked with common club rushes in places and decent level of weed the barbel had a lot of places to hideaway my day was done with a few chub to show for my efforts but i wasn t disappointed at all ade had been with me most of the day so in between catching chub we chewed the fat before he headed off on his own quest no barbel came my way and at dusk i headed off home but it was good fun wandering and see barbel on my first trip was good to see i will be back august 31 2026 9 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels 40riverschallenge barbel barbel fishing r anker thursday 13 august 2026 staffordshire tame double that s a wrap 32 well what can i say that hasn t already been said my first ever visit to the s tame the trent biggest contributor was a blazing success but my day journey didn t start there my alarm went off at 0330 for an early start as i had some filming planned which was time sensitive so decided to head to the r severn to do that filming the river temp measured 19 8c late morning which is not too bad but the bright sunshine had me wondering if we were going to get a bite not ideal conditions but we gave it a go i was joined by richy from drennan and we got to business early doors with the bits we needed to do we just needed a barbel to have a feed unfortunately we did not muster more than a solitary bream which was a shame 170 miles nearly 3hrs of driving it was a good catch up with rich and we were also joined by the bailiff of the barbel society water at pixham ferry steven who i had met for the first time in person but we have spoken online for a couple years and has followed my barbel challenge for probably longer than that after deciding to call it a day around 3pm i already had my sights set on my next stop that being the staffordshire tame only an hour away from the severn it was a nice short 42 mile drive where i detoured slightly via sutton coldfield to pick up a permit for a different river then onward to meet barbel and midland expert ade busby ade knows a fair bit when it comes to the midland rivers and has caught some special fish off the s tame and anker which will feature later on when i arrived at the gates i was greeted by ade and then the club secretary to which he quipped good luck on the barbel it s going to take you a while a challenge set is always a challenge accepted upon parking up and walking the river with ade a couple of areas certainly stood out to me especially those areas that had good flow with some near side or far side cover it looks like it should hold plenty of barbel but i am reliably informed it is by no means easy and holds a very low stock of barbel in places nice pace up and down the river makes a change pretty clear brevvie before getting set for the evening after ade and i had chatted for a while he headed off for tea and set about making mine with the view to starting around an hour before sunset whilst my scran was cooking i had a quick walk up and downstream with a bag of boilees 15mm dynamite baits hot crab n krill where i launched in around two handfuls per spot four spots primed i went back to munch my dinner almost crayfish proof good stuff after that was taken care of i plonked myself into swim one at the bottom of the section and spent two hours in there trying to pick up a fish in between the constant crayfish trouble even with hard hooker 22mm boilee on the hair i was still getting bothered after 2 hours i moved in hindsight i should have gone sooner where crayfish are very active often means there are little or no fish feeding so i opted to walk all the way down to the bottom boundary which was quite a wander but it would prove to be a brilliant decision i listened to the callum simpson victory over troy williamson and around ten minutes after the fight i had a sudden lurch on my new acolyte barbel rod and the centre pin ripped off no way this was another small chub this fish was in a hurry just two minutes into the fight she buried her head into a snag and it all went solid i knew it was a barbel simply from the take but didn t know how big and did not want to take any chances with the micro barb size 10 hook i opted to just ease off the tension where i hoped she would back off downstream on her own volition after a tense minute of so i could feel the tension begin to reapply as she began to back off and for the first time in what felt like an eternity i was back in direct contact with the fish and from that point on she played out in the deeper fast flowing water in front of me for a couple more minutes before gliding into the net first time this fish could be the one i thought and soon enough it was confirmed it most certainly was the one staffordshire tame 10lb 6oz that smile couldn t be much bigger given how tough some rivers have proven to be this one took all of 3hrs to achieve quite incredible really when all things are considered but luck has to play a major part in angling and this time it did fishing sometimes has mysterious ways of working river number 32 completed and down to just 8 rivers and my challenge is finished yes i know there is a way to go yet but it is all falling into place whilst...