While we all anticipate the start of the season with high hopes of catching loads of fish before they realise they’re being fished for again, it often doesn’t turn out that way, and we end up struggling to catch. The fish we’ve seen all closed season seem to magically vanish come the 16th, leaving us scratching our heads, as if they are aware of what date it is.
That wasn’t the case, however, for Liam Willis, who hit the ground running by catching a string of double-figure barbel during his first session on the bank this season. Among them was a cracking 15lb 13oz barbel, making the 270-mile round trip to the River Trent well worth it.
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"I have set myself a personal challenge this season to catch a 12lb plus barbel every month in the season," Liam told us.
"It won’t be an easy feat trying to balance family life, work, and the UK Barbel Masters events, especially when you consider the River Trent is such a distance from my home," he added.
With 48 hours at his disposal, Liam made his way down to a syndicate stretch on the mighty River Trent. His plan was to try and catch his first barbel of the season, with the session going much better than he could have anticipated, landing a 15lb 13oz barbel just two hours into the new season.
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"After that first fish, things went quiet, but the next night I had a double take at a very similar time to the night previous, resulting in a 10lb 1oz and a 8lb 15oz barbel. Followed by a 7lb barbel at first light," he recalled.
"My final night on this peg again at 2am another double take, and two further doubles in the net. A 13lb 7oz and a 10lb 14oz barbel, it was unbelievable how short the feeding window seemed to be."
"All my barbel were caught on the ever faithful Krill and Anchovy glugged hookers wrapped in matching paste from Skerkro. I presented these on a combi-rig with Kro wide gape hooks, using the new SkerKro running lead clip kits and 21lb Konceal mainline."
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