Lee Swords Fishing

 

Fishing the Tidal Trent is not that hard it just takes a little bit of getting your head around, the river is a big part of the equation, if not the biggest. You need to be able to dominate the Trent ( just as you need to be able to dominate the other large rivers in Britain) or else the river will dominate the angler and that is when failure is almost a nailed on certainty and once you are sure that you can command the river, you need the methods to take advantage of your supremacy.

I have seen anglers arrive on the Tidal Trent with small river mentalities and watched her break them, tearing out their hearts before ripping off their heads and taking a slash down their neck hole! That may sound a little extreme and you may think I am going for shock value… But I am not! The Tidal Trent is a beast of a river!!

And if she takes a dislike to you, you may as well pack up and go home because she will destroy you and your ego in less than a day.

If you were to anthropomorphise the tidal Trent she would be ( in my mind) a lot like Nigella Lawson in looks…Big curvaceous and completely overwhelming to the senses unlike some of the more fashionable “catwalk model” smaller rivers that have all the allure of heroin addled pre-pubescent boys with no “shazzzzam” factor whatsoever.

But I will not go too far down that track as fishing is one of those hobbies that caters for all types of tastes, it isn’t my fault that a fair amount of angers seem to prefer “stick insects” to the “”plus size model”

Another thing that The tidal Trent has in common with Nigella Lawson is they are both predisposed to midnight snacks! Not that a decent angler cannot have a great deal of fun and games during daylight hours because you can. The old wives tale that the tidal Trent only gives up her treasures after dark is  way off the mark, in fact I would say it is complete and utter rubbish.

The main thing to remember if you want to have a lot of success on the tidal Trent and non tidal trenr for that matter during daylight hours is to “think like a match angler”, match anglers generally have very good feeding regimes and it has to be said that their consideration of rigs and end tackle is second only to the carp anglers.

Smaller hooks and smaller baits are the order of the day, there is little room for the big boilie/pellet approach if the river is running clear.

That is not to say you cannot use the small pellet/small boilie with a thin paste wrap approach. Just because  boilies and pellets come in “donkey choker” sizes doesn’t mean that is all they come in and that is the only size they can be used at.

I would say 75% of all my daytime barbel fishing is done with what are classed as micro pellets in the 4-5mm range of sizes, sometimes in pairs sometimes in small clusters but always glued!

I never ever mess around with drills and suchlike these days, not after I pushed a drill through my thumb one night…That little incident really did piss on my bonfire I must say!

Nope super glue is a must in the tackle box for me, at first I was totally sceptical when I saw Matt Brown using it but I was soon won over with how easy it mad things even though I have to admit to having more than one accident with the stuff over the years but all in all I have to say it make life a hell of a lot easier than farting around with “baiting needles” and “stops”, glue  also allows the thinking angler a little bit of scope to get creative.

Baits that could never be drilled can be mounted with ease in seconds with the application of a little bit of glue, you just have to remember to be careful with the stuff or else it will go “tits up” in double quick time and that is a guarantee! I once glued all my fingers together, which was fun. Not.

Ok, let us move on from super gluing pellets because as I write this I have just poured myself a nice glass of  Scotch which means I will soon have a propensity for writing the absurd so lets crack on before it all descends into a quagmire of drivel.

The picture to the right is a fine example of me constructing what I consider to be a “good” daytime bait, it is small and extremely attractive without being so large as to give off danger signals.

A barbel( or any other fish in the vicinity would take something like this without so mush as a second thought!

And even though the pellets are small does not mean they will not take a little bit of a paste wrap, they will and the effect can be dramatic!

A thin coating of paste can be the difference between having a good day and having a great day! Something else I use during the day on the tidal Trent and non tidal Trent is the longer than average hook length  Now one or two anglers have accused me of using longer than average hook lengths simply to boost the sales of fluorocarbon a concept so gay that I am surprised Peter Tatchel and his “Stonewall” mob hasn’t endorsed it.

Here is decent picture on how I cast a paste ball rig, If I was to simply “hoik” it in the paste would tear away from pellet 99 times out of a 100 but if you sit the ball on top of the feeder it will reach the river bed in perfect condition whereupon the paste ball will commence its breakdown and usually get snaffled up in no time at all!

I had one short three hour session on the tidal Trent in late summer/ early autumn when the river was running clear and the “usual crew” that were down for the weekend social session seemed to be struggling to a man…it must have been soul destroying for them to watch a 12 year old girl bag a decent barbel in the first 10 minutes and then have it rubbed in when I added a further four fish before we headed off home without so much as a “please or thank you”

The reason we were successful wasn’t because we were any better than the rest of the blokes on the bank but because we were using the right tackle and the right methods at the right time.

It is all about  reducing the spook factor, the fish that swim in the Trent feed all day…Just so long as they feel comfortable and are not spooked by anything that the angler does.

And the proof the methods and tackle I use to fish the tidal Trent work?

The many hundreds of pictures I have in daylight holding better than average fish.

Fish that many people consider almost impossible to catch, which is insanity. I remember chatting with Steph Horak at a Barbel Society conference and flicking through his scrap book, the man had hundreds of pictures of fish caught in the hours of daylight. Which just goes to prove that with the correct application of methods a decent angler will catch plenty of fish most of  the time and a good angler will catch loads of fish almost all the time’

In the next part of this series I will concentrate on the rods and reels I use on the tidal Trent and try to explain why rods with test curves in the 2-2.75lb  t/c range are the order of the day on the tidal Trent!