Beaten By Barbel

Your local expert this week is STEVE COPE

- Steve Cope

ALTHOUGH I spend most of my free time canal match fishing, I do like to get out on a river when I can, on my quest for a double-figure barbel.

So when Shrewsbury AC chairman Chris Wood contacted me saying that there were some big fish being caught on their waters on the River Severn, at Preston Boats, near Shrewsbury, I asked if I could join him on a session. They part lease the water from St. Helens Ramblers Association.

Unfortunately for us, it coincided with a bright day of autumn sunshine – not good. The river was 1 ft above normal level and had dropped quite a bit overnight, and there was a lot of water pushing through the three-quarters of a mile, 25-peg stretch.

Chris is an accomplished specimen hunter who has caught a variety of big species worldwide. Fishing what's known as the big willow peg, he used pellet feeders, one on a line at 30 yards to mid-river, and another at 15 yards in front of a tree to his right.

“This is a nice, simple approach. The pellets get washed out and trickle down to where the hook bait is,” he said.

He re-fed both swims, hitting the same spot every 15 minutes or so, casting his inside rod close to the tree, so that the bait sank underneath it with the flow.

Chris enthused: “The great thing about this stretch is that it has lots of character; fast swims, overhanging trees, the straight near the railway bridge and big eddies."