what have you had then mr?

i was lucky enough to bag myself a new pb barbel on saturday from the beautifull hampshire avon a cracker at 11lb,and when i say lucky it was my first cast and only had to wait 5minutes crazy.I approched the swm like a lion stalking his prey hands and knees job but as we had a fair bit of rain during the week the river was holding some colour so spotting fish was hard work,so i introduced a couple of handfulls of 3b and another couple of handfulls of 8mm pellet dropped my 2 swan braided rig on the patch of bait and sat back expecting a long wait,but as i was just rolling a fag chaos!!!the tips ripped round flattened my bankstick and the rod was heading into the river fast !i lurched out of my chair tobacco going everywhere and grabbed the rod and was bent in to what seemed like a express train but after a few hairy moments steering her around the weed beds a cracking barbel surfaced and graced my net lovelly a new pb,with fish rested mr nairn captured the moment on his camera and what excellent photos they were cheers pal (hes getting pretty good with the camera must be all that practice photographing my fish lol) Any will be splitting my efforts between the avon and the stour this bank holiday and hopefully will bag a big chub but times is hard at the moment for the cagey stour chub but you never you!!!cheers ade

Well my old mate, that`s the way to do it (and making Nairny act as ghillie for you!!) Thats a proper one, well done.

Sounds like a normal subtle, barely discernable barbel take, I always take the precaution of tying myself to a tree on the Thames, sounds like you might have to do likewise. Tell Nairny he might understand why my banksticks are so robust now, even I might have noticed that bite when touch legering.

Top angling mate.

Mic