Starlight Express

My time on the bank has been severely curtailed this summer, but over the next few weeks work and family pressures are easing off and I should be out and about a bit more.
My pal Tony has also been a shortage of fishing time, and has found that he is only able to sneak in the last few hours of daylight and into the dusk for fishing.

So Saturday evening saw us meet up on the banks of the Ribble for an evening session. The river looked perfect for barbel as it was dropping off after recent heavy rains.
Both of us tackled up a single barbel rod with a large feeder and hair rigged halibut pellet. Tony fished his feeder on a helicopter type rig, I fished mine on a loop within a loop method.
It wasn’t long before we were into fish. Nothing big but still exciting stuff waiting for the rod tip to bang over with an angry barbel on the end.

We caught steadily into the night, catching fish to about 5lbs, then at about midnight my rod tip hooped over and I was into a larger fish. It snagged me up twice, and I got the fish back under control by letting the line go slack for a minute then tightening back into the fish.
Just as i got the fish into the shallows where Tony reported to me that it was by far the best fish of the session, it made one last unfortunately successful lunge for freedom – as the 10lb hooklink parted just below the loop to mainline. Gutted.

No matter – it was a great session.