A Very Special Barbel - Dean Macey

I never feel that confident returning to the same venue the day after catching a good fish. It always feels like I'm pushing my luck too far. This time however, I felt really good and there was something in my gut that told me to head to a totally different area of the river. I fished the same slop Barbel Bomb Feeder Mix and hook bait as the day before but this time the tip slammed round within seconds on the bait touching down. It wasn't the intended barbel but a greedy pike of about 7lb that tailwalked all over the swim! After the unwanted disturbance I repeated my baiting strategy and for the second day time, lowered the rig in place. There were quite a few cray fish in this swim so after 2 hours of the tip rattling around I checked the bait. I was surprised to see that it was mainly intact so I re-wrapped the boilie with a large ball of paste and re-positioned it for the remaining 2 hours of fishing.

Again the crays attacked the paste but after an hour of so it all went quiet...and then came the 4 foot twitch! It's felt massive right from the start and as with the 14lber it was stalemate for some time with me only managing to get one turn on the reel at a time. I inched her upstream until she was under my feet and then in the clear, cold water I saw her turn. I managed to hold it together but when she slid over the net my hands started shaking uncontrollably. I love that feeling! I rang my mate, Dave Perrott, straight away and told him I had a proper one and that his photography skills were needed. After all, he did the pics of the fish the night before. As I write this it's the morning after and I've had no sleep at all, I'm still totally buzzing like a lottery winner! I was more than happy with a PB of 15.8lb and to be honest, with the way most rivers are going these days I never in my wildest dreams expected to better it, so this is a very special fish for me. If the 14.14 was one of the A Team then I guess that makes this one of the AA Team! 

Deano