weekend on the river severn

A few weeks back i went on one of my weekend jaunts to the river Severn,
as most river anglers know over the new season the rivers have been flooded
with some heavy rain and storms.this weekend in question was one of those
which ended in disaster after arriving at the river late well into dark and belting
it down with rain we managed to get the van well and truly stuck in the water 
 logged field and had to sleep in the van till morning till the farmer came to the
rescue.
This weekend couldn't have been more different sunshine and very warm and
river at normal level.Set up two barbel rods one on halibut pellets the other
on 10mm boilies wrapped in paste.The night, fishing wise was non existent not
a tap on either rod but i was treated to a spectacular night sky with a meteor
shower which more than made up for the lack of bites.
The morning was the same as the night on the barbel rods with not a sign of a bite
so i set up a float rod.The swim i was fishing was 8ft deep and nice even flow
ideal for the stick float so an 8no 8 stick float was the choice with an 18 hook.
After feeding a steady stream of maggots i was getting bites most trotts through
the swim mostly small dace and roach.
The evening came and went the same as the previous night with nothing on the barbel 
so was in to minds if it was worth getting up early and have one last go for them as i had
to be home for mid morning.After being kept awake all night by the dredded mozzies
i got out of my bivvy at 4am and first cast i got my first bite on the barbel rod and a nice
fish was resting in the margins in my landing.Three more barbel followed that one before i had to pack up and head home so ended with a nice result,note to myself dont forget the mozzie spray

Due to the amount of rain pouring into some

of my favorite rivers over the past few weeks

Ive had to carefully choose the venues i want to fish.

Theres one river that you can rely on to run off

after plenty of rain and that the River Ribble in

Lancashire,it can be 4ft up one day and normal

level the next.

Last week saw me visiting a stretch of the Ribble

i had not fished for 20 years and that was the tidal

reaches in Preston.I had walk the the stretch i was fishing

the day before and took a note of possible swims that might

hold some fish,some swims were more obvious than others

with fish topping and giving there presence away

First light was the plan to start fishing and after a fair walk

arrived at my peg.tactics was going to be the waggler down the

middle of the river with double bronze maggot on the hook.

After a couple of runs down the swim with the waggler and a

pouch full of maggots the float slid away and a nice Dace was

on its way to my net.The couple of hours produced a bite most

runs down the river with the main culprits being small Dace and Roach.Just as the tide was backing up the river the float slid

away but this time it was something a lot bigger and a few minutes

a nice fat Chub was in the net .After the Chub the fishing went quiet so called it a day