February Floods - Ade Kiddell

This entry was posted on 23rd February, 2018

At the end of my last Blog I mentioned that my local river was in major flood, the major flood continued for a good few days with some damage to local properties and several roads closed due to flooding. The good thing was as the flood was caused by lots of rain and not snow melt the water temperature was relatively high, so every chance of a few fish if I could find a swim with a nice steady flow.

Whatever you choose to fish for in flooded conditions its important to fish a suitable bait, the best bait in any flood has to be worm, 1000s of worms get washed into the river when its in flood so nothing beats fishing with what the fish see as natural food. With so much colour in the water created by the flood its important to fish a nice big bait with plenty of attraction.



I consider myself to be a bait angler, although I have fished with lures and spinners a bit in the past I have to admit to being a bit of a novice, but the locals out here in France spend a lot of time lure fishing with such a variety of fish to catch I have been having a little dabble guided by my local mate Fabrice, a top angler who lives in the village. He helped me get my set up right and we spent a few hours together fishing with rubber shads and drop shotting in and around the locks and canal cuttings, out of the main flood. I managed a few small perch and one half decent Zander. Fabrice however stole the show with a massive catfish estimated at around 80lb, taken on a drop shot rig meant for perch, a 40 minute battle on a flooded river with 6lb Flouro leader had the odds stacked against him, but in the end the fish was landed after a few heart stopping runs.

With the floods starting to recede I had a couple of sessions with the pole feeder and managed to land a couple of decent bags of roach, no big fish but nice fishing, I enjoy fishing whatever I catch and much as its great to catch big fish and break PBs but I am happy to catch fish whatever, wherever and whenever I can.



My plans this year to catch a barbel every month of the year were going well with several caught in January and the flooded conditions helped with that, barbel tend to feed well in flooded conditions as long as you can find them. I tend to adopt a mobile approach and if I haven't caught after an hour then its time to move.

Already at the end of January I had my eyes set on a February barbel but with the weather forecast looking a bit more winter like with heavy snow and freezing winds forecast but the river was still relatively warm, my gut feeling was try to catch Februarys target before the weather changed. I ventured out at first light on the 1st with the plan to fish 2 or 3 different swims and see if I could catch a barbel or two before the forecast snow arrived.



With the flow still fairly strong the fish are often close in so I cast to the crease of the main flow and felt the feeder onto the bottom and paid out a few extra yards of line to aid the feeder holding. As I placed the rod onto the Korum River tripod I felt a pluck and then a proper tug and the strike met with solid resistance of a decent barbel in the heavy flow. A couple of minutes later barbel in the net job done. I managed another barbel and a hook pull before the cold wind and first snow flurries had me heading home.

Some would say crazy but I was out again early the next morning, with a nice covering of snow I had an image in my head of me holding a decent barbel with a nice backdrop of the snow covered hills. Sadly it wasn't to be I never had a touch in 2 hours and retired to the log fire and mug of tea.

The spring is hopefully just around the corner, daylight hours are lengthening and hopefully the fish will feed hard in preparation for spawning. I have my eyes set on a march barbel and some good river carp as the spring progresses.