Barbel Blitz - 150 fish in 4 days

Fast forward to today, and we are now both back in sunny Hampshire absolutely shattered after 4 days of non stop action!

Tuesday morning we left the New Forest just before 4am with the motor packed full of enough bait to catch 100 barbel!! Kilos of Blitz Boilies, Elips Pellets, Prepared Maize and Blitz paste where on the menu - what fish could resist?

4 and a bit hours later we arrived at our first River Trent destination at Fiskerton and were both keen as mustard to get going.

John had been there before so quickly got me up to speed on tactics

The winning formula was to be PVA bags stuffed full of pellets, glugged with Blitz oil, accompanied a simple small bait rigs cast into a well baited swim, spombs bursting full of prepared hemp and pellets created an irresistible platter for the resident barbel.

It didn’t take any time at all for the action to start and before long John was into his first, second and third fish! I’d barely wiped the sleepy dust from my eyes! This action continued for the whole of the day, with me catching my first barbel in over 3 years! (Although I’d not fished for them …hehe)

The River although low, was in great health, with the margins teeming with small perch and roach. Wildlife was thriving too, buzzards, Egrets, kingfishers, families of geese and ducks provide so much to see and for me adds a huge amount to the experience

By the end of day one the numbers of fish caught were truly staggering! 25 barbel were landed! Bonus Bream, Roach and Chub were also caught.. a fantastic days angling.

We even managed to get back to our digs before 7pm showered, changed and in the pub before 8pm.

We managed to get back into our swims for day two and continued our tactics. Having topped up our swims the night before, action again started quickly, and by the time we were back in the pub we had banked yet another 25 barbel! Two days, 50 barbel including a double each, John as usual was top rod and managed an 11.15 which the biggest of the bunch!

A perfect ‘warm up’ for the next two days on Collingham Weir, even the local beer was call Weery which sounded like the planets were lining up for us! A 3.30am alarm and we were soon stood in front of the awesome Collingham Weir, really is a majestic sight at first light.

Collingham is know as a Mecca for barbel anglers and within 3 minutes John was bending into the first of many many fish.

Tactics were slightly different, waders on, casting Blitz Boilies wrapped in matching Paste with slightly heavier leads at a longer range into the white foamy water of the weir!

I flew out to the gates with my first 4 barbel all being doubles, I had to pinch myself!

John’s barbel whispering skills were evident, his consistency, accuracy and effort soon saw his catch rate eclipse mine and by the time were were back in the pub we would have emptied any other river in the country, with John managed 28 barbel and me fluking 14 …. a truly remarkable days angling, especially as out of the 41 fish caught 16 were doubles!

Topped up with Weery’s beer and some fish and chips day two continued to produce some incredible results! Especially for John ‘the Barbel’ McGough. His consistency was the key, hitting the same spots as the day before, he continued to catch fish after fish.

I again started well, with some fantastic fish caught in the morning. My fortune changed however, hitting snags, losing a few fish, with lots of tackle lost, my bottom lip began to show! (What a baby hey!)

But - the Weery beer was right, and truly was a sign of positive things, I have to say we/John humbled the great Weir with some absolutely fantastic final results

John managed 42 fish from the Weir, of which 15 were over 10lb … I chipped in with 16 of which 6 were over 10lb. We bought what we thought would be enough bait of 100 fish!


We actually caught 150 barbel.. with 41 doubles

There really is something about this Hinders Bait! Fishing with confidence isn’t just a strap lin!!

Tight lines everyone !!
Richie and John