This week I had a two-day jaunt to Bedfordshire planned with Geoff and Kevin. After a lean October, in terms of fishing time, it was nice to get the opportunity to spend a couple of days out on the banks. The plan was to fish the Ivel on the first day and then decide where to go on the second day, depending on river conditions, the weather and catches.
The Ivel
We arrived early morning and wandered the banks. Never having seen this river before, we were uncertain of quite what to expect. Our first encounter was met with a very shallow, fast flowing river. We walked a long way and never really found any depth. So we opted for a recce elsewhere. This next area looked far more promising. There seemed to be plenty of depth, mixed with some shallow runs and riffles.
It is not a particularly wide river, quite intimate in fact. A delightful river, with lots of bankside cover. The river bottom appeared to be largely gravel and there was a really nice flow. The down side was the amount of weed still present. Had we have been planning a spot of barbel fishing, the weed would have been a bonus. However we were hoping to do some trotting and this looked like it might be a little tricky, given the amount of weed.
Still nevertheless we opted for the float, just to see what we could do. The wind had really got up by now and this was also proving to be a challenge. After a couple of hours of persevering, Geoff and I surrendered to the conditions and decided we had to move. The area we had fished had been heavily weeded and was open to the elements. The wind howling downstream, really hadn’t helped matters.
We wandered upstream and Geoff soon found an area more to his liking. I decided to go further and found a couple of potential runs. Luckily I had donned my breathable chest waders and so could access swims that would have been otherwise impossible. The first run was off of a bend that then straightened a few yards down stream. I was wading to a depth of about 2ft 8in+ and I was confident there would be a few fish in residence. I was using a 6bb float, mainly due to the strength of the wind. The slightly bulkier float would offer a little more stability in these conditions. Bait was double red maggot. I also had some bread and worms as a change bait. Mainline was 4lb Reflo and a 3.2lb Reflo hooklink.
The River Ivel
Flicking out a few maggots each trot through, I watched the float glide its way downstream. The red top suddenly dipped and the strike met with a totally solid resistance. Sadly not a fish. Even here were very thick stems of dying weed. Some areas seemed clear though. So after a few investigative casts, I found a line that appeared to be weed free. I kept the bait going in every cast but all I was managing to catch were minnows, very small dace and gudgeon. After a couple of hours nothing bigger had materialised. The water was a little chilly and my legs were starting to go numb. The swim was well sheltered from above by a canopy of trees and this kept the temperature down. Despite the swim appearing to be a fabulous run, I opted to move upstream.
Here I had discovered another mouth-watering run. The river was narrowed by an old tree stump and then opened out again. There was a lovely run right down to some over hanging willows. Again I had to wade out into about 2 feet of water to access this swim. Again I felt confident. Again only minnows and gudgeon showed themselves. Eventually I managed to entice a nice roach but this was soon grabbed by a pike, which came off. Luckily the roach survived and looked to be about 4-6oz.
Geoff didn’t appear to be fairing any better than I but Kevin had found a super little swim and was catching almost every cast. He had caught lots of really nice perch to over 2lbs and then hooked into a zoo creature, which he soon guessed was a barbel. After a hair-raising fight, he managed to get it into the net, where upon it promptly jumped back out! Still his luck was in and he netted it again and managed to keep it in this time. It was a beautiful, pristine fish that weighed 6lb 12oz and was the icing on the cake for Kevin. He’d had a tremendous days fishing.
6lb 12oz Ivel Barbel
Geoff eventually managed a reasonable chub of about 3lbs but I couldn’t muster anything over a couple of ounces. We fished on for about 45 minutes into darkness but the fish weren’t playing ball, so we called it a day. Still it was a lovely river and we all agreed well worth a few more visits over the winter months. So in good old Arnie fashion I promised myself “I’ll be back”.
The River Angler 
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