A Fine Brace

Yesterday I managed a short session at Scropton as the day drew to a close. I found a nice swim where I expected the barbel to be feeding in mid water and put in several pouchfulls of hemp and pellets before tackling up. Then I set a new little record for myself of time to bank the first fish, my first cast was about 2000 and at 2015 I had returned a 7lb 7oz barbel.

The fish were obviously on the feed as I've never had so many pulls and twitches on the rod tip throughout my session. About an hour or so later another firm pull resulted in the fish above which I did not weight but would guess about 6lb-ish perhaps a bit less.
The bigger barb was in great condition as can be seen below, unfortunately it is not my best barbel pic, I was thinking too much about getting him back in safely which is the first priority with these fine wild river fish. At 2215 the light was going fast and as I could only just make out the rod tip called it a day.