Brilliant barbel

The angler is looking for gravel-bottomed glides between four and six feet on the river. You can wade carefully and the gear is simplicity itself, with just between one and three SSG shot on your line. (SSG shot used to be called ‘swan shot’ and are about the size of a pea. They are the next size up from AAA shot, which we’ll come to when we float fish.) Place them six inches apart, starting a foot up from a size 6 micro-barbed hook. Bait is two lobworms, and keep a further 30 of them in a bucket on your belt. Cast 10 yards or so upstream at about one o’clock and feel the weight and worms fall through the water column, pushed by the current. Soon they’ll hit bottom and hold there, and the sensation of ‘crunching’ will transmit up the line to your fingers. Point the rod tip downstream, towards the settled bait, and gently hold the line between the thumb and forefinger of your reeling hand. Feel for plucks, tweaks and then good solid pulls. The line is an umbilical cord linking you and the fish, and that feeling of closeness is intensely thrilling. Instinct will tell you when to strike firmly, and if it’s a decent barbel you are in for 10 minutes of mayhem with runs of 30 yards or more. I’ve seen grown men and women shout with glee.

• Target weight: Six pounds; dream weight 10 pounds. Glorious golden-flanked fish with athletic body and coral-pink fins.
• Tackle: Avon-type 11-foot rod, reel with eight-pound line. SSG shot. Micro-barbed size 6 hooks (buy eyed hooks and use a blood knot to tie them).
• Bait: Lobworms.
• Season: 16 June until the end of October.
• Location: The Wye, Upper Severn, shallows on the Trent, Yorkshire rivers such as the Swale and smaller rivers like the Driffield Beck.

Chub are big-brassy-scaled fish that feed in most conditions

Big, obliging chub

What you want is a long, straight, steady-paced run up to seven feet deep over sand, gravel or small stones. Tresses of Ranunculus weed are an advantage and you can wade or fish from the bank-side shallows. Mash white bread in a bucket, focus on the head of the swim and begin to feed handfuls downriver. Depending on the depth and speed of the water, choose an Avon float robust enough to ride the current and sufficiently large to be seen at 30 or 40 yards, sometimes more. Put what are called the bulk shot around 18 inches up from the hook and set the float so that the bread is just brushing bottom. A size 10 hook is great for chub. Squeeze a piece of bread an inch or so square around the shank, leaving the hook point free. Allow the float to go down with the current, occasionally stopping the line so that the bread rises enticingly: an induced take if you like. Maintain good contact and mend the line just like you would fly-fishing so that big loops don’t form and pull the float off course. It might take 20 minutes of steady feeding and fishing but when that float dips and you hit into a good chub way off downriver, well, this is one of the great sensations in fishing.

• Target weight: Three pounds; dream weight six pounds. Big, brassy-scaled fish that look great and feed in most conditions.
• Tackle: Float rod of 13 or 14 feet. Reel line of six-pound line. An assortment of Avontype full-bodied floats. (You can find these advertised on the internet – Drennan models are fine. Ian Lewis’s handmade floats are divine: the 4AAA models cope with most rivers.) Size 10 hooks and split shot.
• Bait: White bread.
• Season: 16 June to 14 March.
• Location: The Dane in Cheshire, the Nidd, the Hampshire Avon, the Stour, the Wye, the Thames and upper Ouse. For an added thrill, take the method to estuaries for summer mullet on an incoming tide (the Devonshire Avon at Burgh Island is a good bet).

UK rivers are full of spectacular, bold-taking and hard-fighting perch

Perch attack

UK rivers, canals and stillwaters are full of perch again. These are terrific fish: spectacular to look at, bold taking and dynamite fighters. Those buccaneering stripes and spiked dorsal fins make them gaspingly gorgeous. However, our waters are also full of something else: signal crayfish. The only upside of this invasion is that perch devour these mini lobsters and the plastic crayfish imitations are a joy to fish. Again, go mobile whatever water you are on. That Avon rod is great and with six-pound line and a small assortment of different sized and coloured patterns you can roam all day. You might need an SSG shot in quick water but generally the lure will sink slowly and enticingly without. Flick out close to any semblance of cover or sanctuary and retrieve with quick jerky movements with pauses in between. Bang, crash, wallop – there’s nothing like a perch hammering a cray, but remember: if there are pike around, you’ll need a wire trace and long-nosed unhooking pliers.

• Target: A two-pound perch is a cracker; a three-pounder and you have a serious fish.
• Tackle: Avon rod, six-pound line, shot, half a dozen crayfish patterns. Wire traces in case of pike attention.
• Season: 16 June to 14 March.
• Location: Most UK rivers, pits and canals. I have recently seen big perch on Manchester canals and in the heart of London.

You must know how to unhook pike

Frog it for pike

Talking of pike, Bob Mortimer’s favourite style of fishing is twitching back a floating frog pattern through weeds, reeds and lilies for these shallow-water predators. It’s explosively heart-stopping and he’s hooked. Aim for slack water on mill and weir pools; slower, weedy lengths of rivers; and lilies and floating weeds on canals, ponds and pits. Flick out your frog close to cover. Let it settle with a splash. Allow it to rest then give it a six-inch pull. Let it rest. Pull again. Impart all the life you can, and bingo. Watch for an approaching bow wave, a savage topwater take and then aerial fireworks. Keep on the move, exploring new water. Use a wire trace, even though a great white-mouthed chub could hammer that frog of yours just as easily as a pike. Gripping stuff.

• Target: Any topwater pike from two pounds to 20 pounds. Or a big chub.
• Tackle: Avon rod, 10-pound line, selection of frogs, wire traces and long-nosed pliers
• Season: 16 June to the end of October.
• Location: Any UK shallow fisheries. My favourite? The glorious Thames weir pools.

Freelining

As simple as it sounds. Choose a quick flow of water and just swing out a largish bait on a size 4 or 6 hook. Bread, worms, cheese or luncheon meat are all fish-catchers. There’s nothing else whatsoever on the line, so the bait will just trundle down with the current. Let the strength of the river work the bait downstream in the most natural of ways. Lift the bait when it hits bottom and let it go on its way again and you can work 50 yards of water. Watch for the line zipping tight then sweep the rod back until you make contact and hang on. Catch a fish like this, move on and you can cover miles of water in a day, picking up fish as you go.

• Target: Chub, barbel, perch – even a big dace or roach.
• Tackle: The Avon rod and reel with six-pound line, hooks and bait – simple as that.
• Season: 16 June until the end of October.
• Location: All UK rivers that have some summer flow. (Read an A-Z of river health.)

Stalking

Akin to freelining but moving more slowly and carefully, casting to fish you can often see. This is all about stealth and watercraft: when you can get close to wagtails and dippers, and I have even had kingfishers sit on my rod. Choose a sunny day and wade if you want to. Travel light with a bucket of bait, rod, reel, pocket of bits and net. Watch for the long, golden gleam of a barbel as it turns on the gravel. Look for dark shapes with the black tails of chub. Explore slightly deeper water for perch and even a stately river bream. No need for loose feed: simply drop those lobs where you see fish or where your hunter instincts guide you. Watching a 10-pound barbel shifting in the current to snaffle your lobworms is a white-hot moment right up there with the sizzle of a taking salmon.

• Target: Chub, barbel, perch and bream.
• Tackle: Avon rod and six- to eight-pound line. Selection of hooks in sizes 6, 8 and 10.
• Season: June to October.
• Location: All UK rivers; the Lea, Frome, Wensum and upper Bure are favourites.

Fly-fishing

There’s a vogue among younger fly-fishers to target UK coarse fish on their game gear. Barbel and chub are fabulous on clearer rivers in the warmer months. Both Czech and Euro nymphing work well, although I’d recommend a six-pound tippet and a single fly: barbel fight long and hard and droppers can easily foul on rocks and weeds. My favourite flies are weighted Pink Shrimps, caddis patterns and the ubiquitous Squirmy Wormy with not less than a 6wt kit floating line. A 12-foot switch rod gives me great control and power and is perfect for popper fishing too. Poppers work exactly like floating frogs and can sometimes succeed where they fail – especially for chub, which seem obsessed with them at times. The unsung rudd are supremely catchable on nymphs and dries if you can find them. My favourite venue is the River Cam and the drains around it. They are incredible golden pots of fish with vivid blood-red fins but, above all, they are wild. None of the fish I have mentioned have been brought up in stew ponds, fed on pellets or arrived in tanks on a lorry. They might not have adipose fins but are gripping quarry nonetheless. A whole, natural angling world awaits. (Read more on fly-fishing for coarse fish.)