Still struggling

If it wasn't for Chub and Trout my Winter fishing would have been a total disaster this season. I have blanked for Pike, not been able to get near the Grayling rivers and also not seen ideal Roach conditions either. Today I hoped would be different.
With the recent slight increase in water and air temperatures and a dull overcast day forecast I naively thought that there was a good opportunity there to catch a Barbel, I was way out.
I should have known that it was going to be a bad day when I got a couple of miles down the road and realised I had forgotten my rods-idiot! The rain had started as forecast so I decided to head to a swim that I knew had great Barbel potential in these conditions, I had a 'twelve' from there in similar conditions.

Blatant excuse for posting old success photo

I started out with two rods both baited with meat and a few freebies on PVA stringers. They remained motionless, not even a Chubby twitch. An extremely tame Mallard entertained me for a while and would even let me feed her by hand.

To begin with this was mildly amusing but it became a nuisance as she followed me the whole day, begging for titbits constantly. Anyway after a couple of hours I knew plan A had failed so I tried plan B, boilies and a swim change. Plan B failed too.
Plan C. As an afterthought I had chucked some cheesepaste in my bag but my Barbel rods are too insensitive to easily detect the delicate pluckings of a Chub and although I had a couple of bites that was as much success as I was to have, I missed them both. Besides having set my heart on a Barbel a Chub would have been an anticlimax anyway.
I went home damp and feeling sorry for myself but it was better than being at work!

Best part of the day!