Scropton Barbel

5lb ish, but with the tail of a bigger one!

 I was really looking forward to some barbel fishing this year and had a great opening session yesterday evening at Scropton. The water was quite colured and after all the rain we had last week was at a reaonably high summer level of 0.83m on the EA site.
There were quite a few cars around and I met another angler on my way down to the river who had caught some nice chub and a corking brown trout on a prawn! It was barbel I was after though and I was slightly surprised to find my first choice of peg free, it had been fished earlier though.
Initially I put in about half a dozen bait droppers of hemp and corn, had a walk to the bottom boundary then came back and tackled up. My normal 1 oz feeder would not hold bottom so on went a 2 oz and that faired OK. After an hour or so I had a feisty barbel of about 5lbs and how I'd forgotten how hard they pulled!!
A longer wait for my second fish but it was worth it. Just around dusk my rod leapt round in the 2 foot twitch and the fight was on. Three time this fish had the drag spinning making strong runs and took a long time to work upstream. After the excitement it went into the back of the net and I rested it before weighing and a quick snap. At 8lb 1oz I was well pleased and two barbel on my first trip was a little more than I expected. I released the fish a tad downstream where I could get into the river earlier and ensure the fish was fully recovered, I ended up supporting it in the dark with my headtorch on. After a good few minutes it was on it's way so happy days.

8lb 1oz