Dave Harrell Angling

JUNGLE WARFARE!
Battle Royale on the Warwickshire Avon!

After a couple of poor matches, I’d got a load of bait left to use up and fancied going somewhere where I could have a chance of a decent catch of chub and possibly barbel.
A quick phone around a few friends revealed that the upper Warwickshire Avon was fishing well so I decided to go to the Barford Angling stretch near Warwick.
Barford is only thirty minutes from where I live and it’s a venue I have enjoyed fishing over the years but one I haven’t been to enough in truth. The matches there are good but they have often clashed with other commitments elsewhere.
I settled on a swim a short way below the bridge where the river channeled in and ran through really fast. It looked perfect for a few chub and I also thought it could hold barbel.
I set up two Daiwa Tournament RS 13P rods with TDR 2508 reels and 6lb (0.20mm) Pro Match reel line. To start with, I felt that it would be a good idea to tie a strong size 12 hook direct to the main line. This would give me a good chance of landing a decent fish in the strong flow and also (hopefully) keep chub from burying their heads in the w**d.
The swim was only 3.5ft deep so to start with I set up two No1 Shallow Water stick float rigs. An 8No4 was set up with a bulk of 4BB fixed 25cm from the hook. A lighter 5No4 float was set up with strung out No4 shots, the bottom shot being 20cm from the hook.
For feed I’d got two pints of casters, two pints of h**p and two pints of maggots. I always start off with casters and h**p on this type of swim and invariably end up feeding maggots later in the session. It’s something I’ve done in matches for many years and it’s a great way of keeping the fish feeding for the duration of a match or bringing a swim back to life when bites have dried up.
Starting hookbait was three big bronze maggots and feed was a 20 or 30 casters plus the same volume of h**p every run through.
The early stages of a session on a swim like this one is all about getting your depth right and learning about where you can safely run a float through without snagging up on w**d. There was plenty of it and I suspected that I’d have some real battles on my hands if I started to hook any big chub!
I didn’t have long to wait to find out as a 4lb fish ran me all over the river, desperately trying to snag me up on every available bit of w**d! It’s times like that when strong line is a must and I’m pleased to report that the 6lb Pro Match was up to the task!
I wanted to slow the hookbait presentation down so left the bail arm over and backwound the reel handle, keeping a tight line to the float. This is often a good way to catch bigger fish, especially barbel and I landed a small one around the pound mark before hooking into a crazy chub which ran me straight into w**d and snagged up solid! One back to them!
I continued to pick up odd fish before the swim died completely. This coincided with the sun being at its highest and with the water gin clear, things weren’t exactly in my favour at this stage.
As the session wore on, I gradually started to pick up a few more fish on the strung out 5No4 rig and by switching to maggot feed, more decent chub followed. I lost two more in w**d but this was jungle warfare and I would have been very lucky to land everything that I hooked.
I wanted to end the session with a decent barbel if there were any in the swim. The final rig switch saw a change to a cut down 4g No3 Bolo with an olivette positioned 25cm above the hook and no dropper shot. If you look at the float in the picture, you will see that both the tip and stem have been shortened and these little floats work great in shallow water when you want to slow your presentation right down. The best way to control this rig is by backwinding it down the swim with a tight line and adding more shot if necessary. I do this by adding BBs under the olivette.
The change worked like a dream as a 5lb barbel took a liking to the four hook maggots and gave me the perfect ending to a great afternoon session!
These tactics will work on all shallow rivers where chub and barbel are present so give them a try over the next few months.

TEAM PLACE AVAILABLE FOR WYE WINTER LEAGUE
League organiser Dave Roberts has announced all the dates for the Wye Winter League today. There is one team (of six) place available if any team is interested in joining what has to be the best river winter league in the country in terms of weights!
See the River Wye Match Fishing page for more details…

Fantastic weights again at Burton Joyce today! One bream weight and the rest of the weights made up with perch, roach, dace and chub.
Every five peg section apart from one won with double figures! Nowhere in the country is fishing this well over 80 pegs!
Well done to 2020 Champion Paul Cannon on the win!

NEW!
Smaller 0.20g sizes of DH24 and DH25 available early next week.
I’ve been asked for these two new sizes many times for short whip fishing so here they are!

GET LOADED!
We were running very low on stock on nearly all of our loaded wagglers last month! It's been a busy time at the factory and the stock bins are now all full again...
Available from leading tackle shops and online. Google for mail order stockists.
Here's what's available:
No1 LOADED GREY - 2g to 5g
No2 LOADED GREY - 2g to 5g
No3 LOADED GREY - 4g to 7g
LOADED GREY SENSITIP - 2g to 5g
No1 LOADED BROWN -1g to 4g
No2 LOADED BROWN - 1g to 5g
No3 LOADED BROWN - 1g to 4g

SEVERN HEAVEN AT BRIDGNORTH
Childhood dream becomes a reality...

When I was a teenager, my dad used to takes me to some lovely stretches of the River Severn. Included in the list of venues were Knowle Sands, Eardington and Hampton Loade and getting to these venues involved driving over the river bridge at Bridgnorth.
Every time we did so, there was a swim immediately below the bridge that I used to look at and always want to fish. Occasionally we would see someone fishing there and I always used to wish it was me down there.
We never fished there and in hindsight now, I think the place was a bit too busy for my dad. There was always a constant flow of traffic coming over the bridge and a lot of people walking over it and also on the path behind it. My dad preferred much quieter places so we’d always end up lower down the river.
The feeling of wanting to fish this swim never went away for me though and all these years later, I finally got the opportunity after a chance conversation with local tackle dealer, Chris Holmes.
Chris has lived in Bridgnorth all his life and is a great source of information for anglers visiting the area. I asked him about the swim that I’d always wanted to fish and we arranged to have a few hours fishing it together.
Chris told me that the better swims were lower down but I was adamant that after waiting to fish it for so many years, that I wanted an afternoon immediately below the bridge.
As we tackled up I started to wonder about the hours ahead. Would the swim be as good as I always dreamt it would be? It would be a huge disappointment if it didn’t produce after waiting so long!

HOW THE SESSION WENT
After getting all the gear down and into the river the first job was get comfortable. I have used Riggers platform barrows for many years and I can’t imagine going river fishing without one. It’s a perfect system for putting a seatbox on or, as for using as a table and standing in the river next to it. With brackets fitted to the legs you can attach a keepnet or feeder arm and everything is always to hand.
For bait, I’d got two pints of casters, a large tin of Bait-Tech h**p and three pints of bronze maggots.
Before I set up a rig, I attached a small dumpy waggler to the line, with rubbers at the top and bottom and then tied a 2oz plummet to the end of the line. This was then used to plumb the depth and I was pleased to find around 5ft of water.
It was always going to be a waggler job as all the main flow was well out so I set up 3SSG and 4SSG Insert Truncheon floats with most of the weight locking the float onto the line and three No4 shots down the 6lb (0.20mm) Pro Match line. I also built in three spare No4s in with the locking shots, as these would give me options if I wanted to put more shot down the line.
I set the rig at 5ft but before we started, I fired four pouchfuls of casters and h**p as far as I could get them and then I loaded three maggots onto a size 14 hook. The current was all over the place but there was a band of water all going the same way in mid river and this would be where we would concentrate our efforts. A floating line was important as we would have to mend the line a few times to keep a straight line to the float.
First cast, the float travelled a long way down the swim before dragging under so I put a few more inches onto the depth. Second cast and the float travelled a short distance down the swim before burying and I struck into our first fish of the day, a chub of nearly 3lb! It felt so good sliding the net under this fish I had waited a very long time to catch one from this swim! Next cast, a 1lb chub took a liking to the three maggots. We were up and running!
I passed the rod to Chris and he added more chub to the net before we started to get plagued with small dace. We changed the hook to a size 12 with four maggots and while the small fish activity continued for a while, we eventually managed to feed them off and continued to catch chub.
I felt sure that there would be some barbel in the swim too but try as we might, we couldn’t get one. We did however see a couple of small ones jump out so there were some there but not feeding.
All too soon our session came to an end and we finished with 21 chub for 25lb. Add around 6lb of dace, which we threw back as we caught them and it was a great afternoon’s fishing.
Three of the better fish escaped while we were doing the catch shot in the river but it didn’t matter. If my dad was looking down I’m sure he would have been laughing as we tried in vain to catch them in mid flight! This was a very special day for me and my personal thanks go to Chris for his help. My childhood dream had become a reality.

MIDDLE SEVERN ANGLING
I would recommend all anglers visiting the Bridgnorth area of the River Severn to pop in and see Chris at his shop in Underhill Street. He’s got everything you’ll need in the there for fishing on the river and he can also help you with information on where is fishing best and the tactics to get the best results. You can also get information on the best places to stay if it’s your first visit to the area. You can contact Chris on 01746 769070.

Celebrating my mate Mark Halksworth’s 70th birthday last night in Burton on Trent…I think he thought we were going to the Caribbean by the looks of his shirt!
Happy birthday buddy!

LAST FEW CHANCES FOR BIG MONEY PRIZES!
I’ve just been looking through the remaining qualifiers for RiverFest 2026…
The Bristol Avon and River Mersey uptakes are very poor but overall there has been around 92% of the tickets sold, I understand.
The big money final is at Burton Joyce and the barbel and bream pegs will be in, in case anyone is wondering so there’s a great chance for anyone to win, even if you only want to feeder fish in the final.
In case you missed them, every final so far has been won on the feeder and we pay the top 15. Section prizes in the final are also bigger than the top prizes in many other matches!
Incidentally, I will be meeting with the Angling Trust guys immediately after the final to discuss RiverFest 2027. In the meantime, here’s a list of what tickets are left for this year…
Good luck!

15/8 - Burton Joyce 80 pegs - 5 left
26/8 - Bristol Avon 40 pegs - 15 left
29/8 - River Mersey 20 pegs - 6 left
2/9 - Burton on Trent 60 pegs - 2 left
5/9 - Evesham 60 pegs - 19 left
5/9 - Great Ouse 40 pegs - 5 left
6/9 - Stourport 40 pegs - 5 left
Final - 19/20 September.

River Wye match regulars might be interested to see this. It's the start of the construction of the A49 road bridge across the river where pegs 95 and 96 now are.
When you look at all that scaffolding, it's no wonder there are snags in peg 95! And how things have changed on both banks of the river now!