I've been quiet on the blogging front for the past few weeks, so having recovered from the flu I thought I'd write an up date account of what I've been up to.
 On the fishing front I've still been catching a few Barbel, nothing big but often enough to keep my interest going. Best fish recently went 9-14.

 When fishing on my own, unless the fish is really big I tend to just take shots of the fish on the unhooking mat or in the net. As you can see from the above photo's the barbel I've been catching recently have been in lovely condition.
 With the river's being so low and clear I thought I'd discuss the tactics use to catch these fish. The present conditions are some of the hardest conditions to catch in. The fish have been pressured all summer and with the clarity of the water the fish will be tucked away under snags or deep in the weed beds.
 I use a minimum of bait at this time, just a small solid PVA bag with of mixed small pellet no bigger than 6mm a couple of crushed boilies and at least 50%of the bag being made up of PVA friendly crushed hemp. My rig is also placed in the bag, the hook bait being a small boilie chop on a strong 14 or 16 hook. The idea being that I want a high attract bait with little feed.
 Another tip that I finds works is not to cast, either lower your bag into the swim or if fishing too far out use a pole and pole cup to place your bait, I've found that the splash made by casting onto spooky fish can really kill your chances at this time of the year.
 The next post will be an update of the annual deer rut and a few pic's I've been taking.