We arrived at our next venue quite excited having met an angler who had fished here the day before and said the river was in good sorts and he’d ‘had a few’. However all expectations were soon dashed when we clapped eyes on the river. Although only maybe 18″ up it was very coloured and pushing through a bit.
It was a stunning piece of river though and part of it ran through the National Trust property – Weir Garden. There is also a magnificent white mansion that overlooks the stunning gardens and river and is now a care home. As the title says ” If Carlsberg did Nursing Homes…….” it would look like Weir Garden.
Weir Garden
I felt a good wander was in order. First swim up and several casts equaled several lots of lost tackle. So back on with the gear and I marched up to the end of the fishery. It was much wider and slower here, with a clear bottom. However after about 20 minutes I decided I didn’t like it for some reason, so opted to head back downstream nearer to where I had started. So off I marched again and with sweat pouring off me in the heat of the summer sun, I finally found somewhere that looked more suitable.
I stumbled across a nice swim in amongst the trees. Fast water dropped off into a deeper gully on a bend, offering a deep crease swim. However this was a tackle graveyard. After loosing several items of tackle I was close to giving in and moving, however the swim looked so good I had to just try once more. I swapped to a lead and started to cast upstream slightly with a heavy lead so it wouldn’t move and then slip into another snag. This seemed to work and suddenly the rod top slammed round and a very fit and healthy barbel was soon subdued. This gave me renewed enthusiasm for the swim. So again I cast slightly upstream and catapulted some bait out. Very soon the rod top whacked round again and another very hard fighting barbel resulted. I swapped to a feeder again to get some bait going in. I ended up with 6 or 7 good sized barbel, all ranging in weights from about 6lbs to nearly 8lbs.
Then casting in exactly the same spot I began to loose tackle again. Numerous casts resulted in numerous lost feeders. I swapped to a lead and ended up with the same result. So this time I cast slightly downstream and further out. Again I found a clear spot and this accounted for several more barbel. Then, quite bizarrely I started to loose tackle here too. I was close to moving but had one more trick up my sleeve. If this worked I would stay put, otherwise I was off. I used the same setup but instead of a feeder or lead, I used a string of the 3 x swan shots on a piece of line. I used 8 of these shot, which held bottom nicely. The reason was that if they were to slip into a crevice in the bedrock, they would just bend and pull straight back out. It worked a treat and I lost no more tackle and ended up with 16 beautiful barbel. I also had a run of good chub taking 3 different 5 pounders on the bounce at 5lb, 5lb 1oz and 5lb 6oz. I was over the moon.
The other guys were struggling. Geoff had 4, Dan 3 and Kevin just a couple. It’s all about swim location and I got lucky finding this one before the others did. Get it right and you can end up with a shed load, get it wrong and you can struggle for a bite. However the conditions were tough and that had some bearing on results. I’m certain we’ll return but hopefully in better, clearer conditions so that we can see what the make up of the river bottom is like.
So another week passed. A pretty good result for me and I did genuinely feel bad for the other three guys. It’s a bummer when you go all of that way and look forward to it so much, only for the fishing to be poor. Still it was good company, great scenery and some amazing wildlife and you have to take that into account too.
The River Angler 
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