When I moved to York a few years ago I was faced with the happy task of finding some new fishing venues in the locality. The way I did this was to obtain a list of all the York Amalgamation of Anglers waters that they managed and started researching the type of fishing that I could expect from them.
I decided to concentrate my efforts on the River Derwent, that begins its life not far inland near Scarborough and winds its way through Malton, Kirkham, Stamford Bridge, Kexby, Sutton on Derwent, joining the Ouse and finally drains into the River Humber. There seemed to be a good head of chub and barbel in this river and this is what I set my sights on.
My first task was to select one of my rods that would be suitable for the job. I wanted to use the float mostly but knew that there would be occasions when only a ledgered bait would do. I only wanted to carry one rod with me anticipating a limited roving approach. By this I mean that I was happy to carry a moderate amount of lightweight fishing tackle, umbrella, seat etc but would move to perhaps three or four different swims over a mile stretch while I was exploring the river.
I decided upon a 12 foot match rod that was designed for fishing the new artificial still waters that were being set up everywhere at the time. They were being filled with one and two year old carp which as they put on weight would tax any match-man! Therefore my rod was a bit more than the usual match rod – it had more back bone. I had actually bought it because of its superb tip action while having enough body to cope with a reasonable sized barbel without too much bother. If I was seeking out the big ones I would step up to a stronger rod. However, this seemed just right. The river was reported to hold both chub to 5lbs and barbel to 10lbs. The expected fish would be around 3 to 5 lbs.
By the way I never intended using this rod for match fishing for little carp in a muddy puddle!
At the time I was using an old Mitchel Match reel with the deeper spool. For those that remember, this was an automatic bale arm version of the famous Mitchel 300 fishing reel. I remember paying £20 for it 33 years ago! It is still going strong and has beaten many barbel to 8lbs and countless chub of all sizes. I have newer - and in terms of technology ‘better’ – reels, but still find myself roving with a single rod and this reel.