Making a Right Asp of Myself

Now on day 6 of the trip and the unseasonably cold weather continues to effect the fishing in Holland, today its only around 9 degrees with a cold north westerly wind and rain showers off and on all day, with the Kribs on Waal like a skating ring and the wind blowing down the river making it feel like its the middle of winter, nothing like what we would expect for May thats for sure.




The River Ijssel near to Zutphen is the venue today, with the temperature so low and the water temperature dropping barbel are going to hard to come by today so we have chosen a venue with a chance of a barbel but also a good chance of catching some back up fish.



Many of the rivers and fish for that matter never get to see a pellet, with, maize, cheese and maggot the main baits and only a few anglers using pellet and boilies on the rivers. With that I mind I leave the pellets in the car buy a couple of litres of maggots, its white only in Holland as coloured maggots are banned, like normal I give the maggots a good helping of curry powder to spice things up a bit.



First cast ends in a bad result as the feeder tangles in the rocks that line the river and is wedged firm and lost, after retying my rig the second cast hardly hits the river when the rod is almost ripped from my hands by a savage bite, the fish makes off downstream and I feel sure I have hooked a barbel only for the fish to come to the surface and end up tight to the bank 15 or so metres below me, this is definitely not a barbel and a Dutch friend sitting behind me watching the action unfolds suspects I have hooked a roofblei more commonly known as an asp, often called the toothless predator the asp is more common to eastern Europe but is slowly spreading through the Dutch river system. I have caught much smaller asp in Holland but this one when I finally landed it after some airborne acrobatics weighed in at 4.06. The asp preys on small fish and crustaceans and in shape and features is not unlike a mini freshwater tarpon, in eastern Europe they are caught up to 120cm in length this one then was a mere baby at around 60cm but nonetheless an exciting fish to catch.

After a greats days sport I finish with 7 asp a couple of decent bream and some nice hybrids, but its been a costly day with half a dozen feeders lost to the rocks, all the same I have had a great days sport with the asp providing some great scraps, I had a feeling the barbel wouldn’t show and I wasn’t wrong, the weather this week has been against us but the forecast is a bit better for the weekend.

Talking Double Dutch

Fishing the River Waal again today but have to be off the bank by 1600 as I have been invited by the Fishing club at Gendt to give a slide show and talk about barbel fishing in England and how I approach the barbel fishing in Holland, barbel fishing is fairly new in Holland and the there is so much potential for some fantastic sport in the future.




The Waal produced the goods this morning in the shape of a cracking barbel of 9.14, the river flow was such that we needed an 8oz feeder to hold bottom in the swim, but typical of barbel fishing the bite was un-miss able and a good fight from the fish in the heavy flow.

The slide show and talk went well this evening with a good turn out of match and specialist anglers enjoyed a good talk with our Dutch friend and host Frans Vogels and his wife Tjitske acting as interrupters for the presentation.

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.

rain rain and just a bit more rain

Holland Day 2

The weather forecast was not looking good with cold Northerly winds dominating the weather charts and heavy rain again due to dampen spirits and tackle.

We spent the morning in Rotterdam at the European distribution headquarters of Preston Innovations where we had a look at the vast range of Tackle and bait sold by Preston and its sisters companies Korum and Sonubaits. Thanks to Arjan and Ronnie for showing us round and demonstrating the tackle also not forgetting the lashings of coffee.

The drive back to Nijmegen was in torrential rain and the car thermometer was reading 7C more like a winters day than an early summer afternoon. We arrived at the River Waal to a strong downstream wind and driving rain, not what we needed when looking for barbel. We fished for around 5 hours before calling it a night, the sum total being a small bream and a hybrid but no barbel.

We got up this morning full of enthusiasm for a good day ahead unfortunately the weather had other ideas with a cold northerly wind blowing and lashing it down with rain, like all the rest of Europe Holland has just come out of a very cold winter and the weather is 3 or 4 weeks behind the norm, none the less us brits are made of stern stuff and we made our way just a few miles from our base near Nijmegen to the river Ijssel.




Meeting up with our Dutch hosts Tim, Willem and Mike they renewed our confidence a little informing us that the barbel are just coming out of their winter slumber and have started to feed over the last few days, fishing English style with open end feeder stuffed with softened pellet and fishmeal groundbait with a Sonubait halibut pellet on the hook we had to wait a couple of hours before the fish fed, but in the end they came on the feed and after a couple of bream and Ide Tom Sayer managed the first barbel of the trip and his first Dutch barbel only a scamp at around 5lb but most welcome.

We packed in around 1700 a little damp from the non stop rain but Tom had done the business with 3 barbel and Ade finished with one barbel and a cracking Ide of around 5lb as well as 3 nice bream, our Dutch hosts had not faired so well and had not managed to get the barbel to play ball today.

Tomorrow we are off to the River Waal, a much bigger river where we are going to need 6oz feeders to hold bottom but we hope to find the barbel hungry and with the weather forecast better for tomorrow fingers are crossed for more barbel action.

We are hoping for a better day tomorrow and if Frans lets us have a little piece of his cheese maybe we will put a picture of him on this blog.

Over to you Dutchy

All Aboard

Blogging this from the middle of the North Sea as we are all aboard for our trip to Europe for a spot of barbel fishing along on the trip is Tom Sayer and my good lady Sonia, who is fast asleep in our cabin after only finishing a night shift at 5am.

Frans tells us the barbel are on the feed so its fingers crossed we can catch a few.

5 Minute Trip To India

Indian Hill Railways

I have been watching the series on BBC i Player about the Indian hill railways, its been a fantastic series so far and I am looking forward to the third and final part next week. The dedication and enthusiasm of the railway workers and the indian people sums up all what I love about India the country and its people.

At times the whole thing looks a bit frightening, with the track and rolling stock having seen better days, but it goes on day after day and if a new part is needed they make it!

Being over a 100 years old and due to the nature of the terrain the bridges and tunnels are in constant need of a repair, and now the 3 mountain railways in India are classed as world heritage sites.