Trip to River Culm

A dawn raid was planned, but with one thing and another, didn't happen.
We left about 10, and after a trip to shops for supplies, arrived at 11:30.
It was crisp and cold, but with a bright winter sun to warm your back.
The Culm is my first (real) freshwater river trip, and it was worth it, just to be there and see it.
It was really nice to walk along a fishing spot like that, in cracking surroundings, with no one around.
There's plenty of roach and dace in there, some Perch, and a good head of Pike, but we were targeting the Chub (up to about 3lb apparently) and the elusive few small barbel that allegedly exist in there, simply because these are two species we have never caught.
The plan was to leger a small feeder with liquidised bread, with bread flake on the hook, or small chunks of meat for the barbel. We also had some worm and maggies to tempt whatever spotted them.
We walked and fished about a third of the 3 mile stretch that was on our book, and the day went very fast. It always does when your enjoying yourself eh?
Being winter, it felt as though as soon as the sun had climbed, it fell again, with no real 'day' to speak of, leaving us with a whole afternoon of evening light.
We worked our way back to one of the first swims near the car park, which funnily enough looked like one the of best. We fished that for about an hour and a half, and it was beautiful.
Given that the weather had been very mild, and then the last 2 days had seen a cold snap, it wasn't that surprising we had no bites, but the walk, the sun, and the scenery made up for it, and I certainly learnt a few things about river fishing.