Great scenery
The Capability Browndesigned gardens provide a great backdrop to the lake
Paradise afloat
Nosing out of the boathouse with a great day ahead of him, Alan reckons British fishing doesn’t get any better than a visit to Blenheim
with 89lb of carp on the pellet waggler!” But at Blenheim there are no ‘pegs’ to pick from. There are no concrete slabs with numbers daubed on them. There are no platforms or wooden pallets to place your box. In fact, fishing from the bank is banned! What does exist is a scarf of wooded, grassed and reedlined banking that envelops 60 acres of water that can all be cast into. Wherever you stop the boat becomes your swim! As he loaded his gear into his unsinkable fishing dinghy at 7.30am, Alan explained where he was rowing to: “Over the years I’ve tried several places around the lake but there’s an area on
the far bank that has consistently produced well for me because it has a good average depth of 7ft9ft which seems to be the sort of depth the tench like. “I row into the edge, well away from the spot I want to fish, then quietly paddle up the margin to get into position. By not crossing the area I’m going to fish, the chances of spooking the tench are reduced. “Some anglers who fish here then cast out a swimfeeder but, for me, there’s no finer way to fish for tench than with the float. “With the boat anchored by the reeds I cast out three or four rodlengths to drop the bait into the slightly deeper water beyond the marginal shelf. I’ve caught
some great bags of fish on the float. I usually average 12 to 15 tench a day with most weighing around 4lb, but I have had fish over 7lb. It is fabulous fishing that’s made even more special by the surroundings. I just love coming here. “There are also masses of big
perch in Blenheim and I usually find them near the obvious features and structures, like overhanging trees and the area around the bridge. I’ve never had a perch under 2lb here and my biggest is 4lb 2oz. All have come on lobworms while feeding flavoured red maggots.”
On sale June 17 – July 15, 2009 IYCF
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features yorkshire barbel with jeff metcalfe Continued
Beating hard banks
Jeff uses a Korum Ruckbag because the positioning of the zips allows him to trap banksticks in the Ruckbag on terrain where he can’t sink the sticks into the ground
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URNING through the thin early morning mist the climbing sun was working hard to reveal the natural beauty of the North Yorkshire countryside. Trudging through the lush dew-soaked grass barbel angler Jeff Metcalfe absorbed his surroundings as he headed for one of his favourite fishing spots. With a rusksack on his back, rods in hand and a landing net slung over his shoulder he was travelling light and ready to rove. His mission was simple but daunting in equal measure – he just had to catch a barbel. Said like that it sounds easy doesn’t it? Just catch a fish. Size is immaterial. Just catch a barbel for the cameras, Jeff. The problem was he was trying to achieve his goal on a low and very clear River Swale, a waterway that holds a good stock of Jeff’s target species but which only releases them to anglers who are able to tough it out with the racing 72-mile ribbon of wild water sourced in the Yorkshire Dales and proud of its uncompromising character. Today, with river conditions pitched against him, this born and bred Yorkshireman would have his knowledge of the Swale tested to the max but as he stood on a high bank overlooking the river he accepted the challenge. “She’s on her bones today…” he whispered, nodding at the clear waters rushing in the shallows beneath him. “Catching a barbel in these conditions is going to be tough – very tough – but if you don’t try, you don’t know if you can catch them…” And with that he set off, silhouetted against the rising sun and the centurion horse chestnut trees that towered over the river. This was a man on a mission – a mission for wild North Yorkshire barbel…
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IYCF Issue 224
Travelling light
Moving swims is one of the keys to catching Swale barbel so Jeff cuts his kit to a minimum to stay mobile
Search for barbel
Jeff Metcalfe waits for a bite on the Leeds DASA stretch of the Swale at Asenby
Early beginnings and later developments
Like thousands of other fishermen, Jeff Metcalfe’s angling life started early. At the age of 12 he was perched on the crossbar of his dad’s bike as the pair went off in search of the River Foss’ aquatic inhabitants. Living in York and with this small river winding its way through his home city, Jeff’s maggot drowning escapades saw him take an apprenticeship of roach, dace and gudgeon, the sort of fish upon which a generation of anglers was born. By the time he learned to drive his horizons widened and a different species came into focus – the barbel. While barbel were a later introduction to some British rivers, as Jeff explored more of the North Yorkshire river system some 40 years ago, he was well aware that this mysterious fish was already well established in the waters he visited. The problem wasn’t finding
venues that held them, the difficulty he had to overcome was how to catch them. “My dad and uncle used to simply call them ‘the elusive barbel’; the two words ‘elusive’ and ‘barbel’ went together from the start, I knew that catching one was going to be tough.” In a perfect world the story would soon develop whereby young Jeff stuck to his guns, gritted his Yorkshire teeth and eventually tamed a whiskered specimen on a rain-lashed night in the middle of a winter storm. Sadly, angling life on the Yorkshire rivers doesn’t follow a script. On these uncompromising venues you succeed or fail at the fish’s behest and despite repeatedly trying to track down the shadowy barbel, teenage Jeff only tasted failure. Like many young men, Jeff’s love of fishing then wained as his career and social life swung away from the river and only 30odd years later was his mission reignited.
After coming back to fishing and developing his fly angling skills to such as extent that he now professionally coaches people to cast a fly, in 2004 one of Jeff’s old fishing mates insisted he joined him on a trip to their local River Ouse in search of a barbel. Rekindling the quest he’d last pursued almost four decades earlier, Jeff tagged along to the Leeds Amalgamation club water at Linton Lock and this time the wild river was more receptive to his approach – a 7lb barbel duly ghosted into his landing net. “That fish had a huge effect,” admitted Jeff as he set up his tackle beside the famous Helperby stretch of the River Swale. “For years the ‘elusive barbel’ had been so elusive that I’d never caught one! Yet here it was, finally laying in my net. The effect it had was inevitable, although it took me an eternity (well two months!) to catch my second. I’ve fished once or twice a week for them ever since. “In the last five years I’ve spent days, weeks and months on five North Yorkshire rivers – the Swale, Wharfe, Nidd, Ouse and Ure – but it’s this river I keep returning to most. If ever I was to have my ashes scattered in a river it would be the Swale. “The Swale has so much character. On the one hand it’s utterly beautiful and picturesque – even if I don’t catch anything I never mind spending a day just looking at it. “She’s a moody, cantankerous river and while so many parts of it scream ‘fish’ you have to earn your fishing stripes to catch.
“If ever I was to have my ashes scattered in a river it would be the Swale” “There are few shortcuts to catching here. One day is never the same as another and the only way to really learn about the river is to fish it in all conditions. “On a day like today, when the river’s on its bones (that’s Yorkshire-speak for low and clear) I often study the shape of the bankside and imagine it with ‘six feet on’ in a flood. “Where will the slack water or clear bits of riverbed be to present a bait on when it’s raging through? “This river can rise at least a foot an hour when it rains. It can even rise when it hasn’t rained! “Sometimes it is dry down river where we fish but it’s thrown it down up in the dales. You come down to the river to find it rising when you’re not expecting it. “That’s part of the appeal of fishing the Swale. It’s a wild river, a living river that can change its character from day-to-day or even hour-to-hour. It sets new challenges every time you visit it.”
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Careful casting
Jeff sends his leger rig to the far bank channel at Helperby
On sale September 9 – October 7, 2009 IYCF
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