Although I am meant to be the carp face of Marukyu I do like to fit in a bit of fishing for other species. Although no one likes a lot of rain in August for me it meant a good chance of catching a barbel from the Great Ouse. The Ouse has been so low this season it was crying out for some rain.

A quick reccy of the river showed me it was up by two feet and had a really nice colour to it. So I headed for one my favourite areas of the river, which unfortunately happens to be a ridiculously long walk but it can be worth it.

This was going to be my first opportunity to try some of the Maruyku products on the barbel.

I love using the method for my barbel fishing as I believe that a good method mix really gives the barbel something nice and smelly to home in on especially in coloured water.

I decided to start with some EFG151 ground bait to which I added some concentrated liquid krill. This was mixed thoroughly together and then I added some 6mm Nori pellets and some broken up Ichigo boilies. My hook bait was going to be two 15mm Ichigo boilies with the sides nibbled away to give them an uneven look and it also helps with the flavour leakage.

I like to prime a couple of swims with some big balls of ground bait to give the barbel a bit of confidence. I gave each swim six cricket sized balls. I then leave these swims for at least an hour while I sort my gear out tie a new rig and have a little mooch about to see what’s happening.

The first swim I dropped in has had a good track record but unfortunately a couple of years ago during a really bad summer flood a big bed of reeds were ripped out. This radically changed the flow in this swim and for a couple of years it has just not been the same.

Luckily the reeds have mostly grown back and I thought that it was worth giving a go. I usually give each cast with a method ball about 30 minutes. An hour and a half later and I hadn’t had a touch casting to the usual bite spots, so I sat studying the flow of the river and I noticed that the reeds that had grown back were slightly further downstream and they were deflecting the flow differently from the past.

I thought I would give it one more cast but slightly further downstream before I moved to my other pre-baited swim. After a couple of minutes I started to get a few indications that something was feeding on the method ball. Sure enough I was soon netting a very nice chub which on first impressions I thought may be close to six pounds, but it was unfortunately empty and weighed in a shade under five.

In my experience I’ve found that it is best to rest a swim after catching so I gave it another couple of balls of ground bait and moved swims. The second swim did not produce anything so an hour and a half later I was back in the first swim.

For added attraction I decided to wrap my hook bait in some Softie paste pellets and within twenty minutes I had caught a stunning barbel of ten pounds. Again this fish was empty and it will probably be nearer twelve at the right time of year.

I’m really looking forward to October on the river because the barbel and chub obviously love the bait so all I have to do is put it in the correct place and with a bit of luck I’ll get some big ones this year.

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