What the difference a day makes

Holland day 3


After yesterdays cold damp wash out and hardly a barbel to show for our efforts so far our confidence was renewed early this morning as we awoke to a much brighter warmer day, still a chill to the wind but bright sunshine and hardly a cloud in the sky.

When we packed in on Monday evening all the bait we had left we piled into the swim around 5 kilos of groundbait and another 3 of mixed pellet and a couple of gallons of hemp, that might sound like a lot but on a big river like the Waal its a drop in the ocean.

After a lazy morning spent sightseeing and drying gear in the warm sunshine we finally got to the river at around 1500, sharing a peg with Tom Sayer who is enjoying his first trip to Holland we soon got settled in and fishing. Not unlike fishing at home on the Trent or Severn we were using mesh feeders to get a bed of feed into the river, the feed being mashed pellet and plenty of hemp and 6 and 8mm pellets to bulk it out. The biggest difference being the feeders carry around 6 to 8oz rather than the 2 to 4oz we might use at home.

It took around two minutes after we started to hook the first fish a hard fighting barbel of over 5lb which took line against a tight set clutch, I had only just returned the fish when I looked up to see Tom playing his first Waal barbel, the smile on his face said it all.

Myself and Tom then proceeded to match each other fish for fish for the next four hours or so with Tom ending up with 9 barbel with a best just over 9lb I finished with 8 but a couple of lost fish to hook pulls cost me a narrow victory. Tom having a cracking afternoon with 10 casts resulting in 9 barbel a far cry from the cold barbel-less afternoon we had spent in the same swim 24 hours earlier.

Again we filled the swim in with all the spare bait we had left over hoping we could keep the fish in the area and maybe tomorrow find some of the bigger fish the river holds.