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| Bobs first barbel for 5 years! |
After a few months of not seeing each other, Bob and I decided to get together for a days fishing on the River Wye in Herefordshire. I booked us both on for the day at a section I fished a few weeks back, where I took 9 cracking fish. Bob's drive up from Newbury equaled the distance I had to travel, so the pair of us arrived pretty much minutes apart....
It looked like it was going to be another stinking hot day ahead, so we opted to fish the lower section of the beat where there is a nice little weir pool section to fish and lots of oxygenated water and of course, hopefully lots of barbel too!
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| Just stunning! |
Things started off very slowly and both Bob and myself struggled to get little more than 1 to 2 inch trembles from very small chub. We persevered with the swim throughout the day and gently built up the level of ground bait, pellets and River Monster Boilies.
Regular casts every 5-10 minutes with a large 2oz open ended feeder allowed a great level of feed to be introduced to the swim. It was almost 3pm before we got our first decent take of the day. Bob had just decided to take a quick call of nature and off went his clutch at an alarming rate! Talk about sods law! I struck into the fish for him while he quickly zipped up!
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| Turbo charged gold bullion! |
I was ecstatic that Bob had finally grabbed a chance as it had been almost 5 years since he'd caught his last Barbel form the Kennet. He was over the moon with his first of the day at 5lb 6oz.
Quickly after I was away with one of just under 5lbs. This then culminated in a very quick bite coming almost straight away again after I cast out the next time! The feeder still full and a speedy little 2lb barbel found the net!
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| Sunset boulevard! |
I then lost one on the next cast before things went decidedly quiet yet again. We couldn't have bought a bite with a euro lottery win! It was absolutely dead! I decided to put out a lightweight 1oz feeder with a long fluorocarbon tail on my new Ray Walton rod and pin which had yet to see it's first barbel....
This was placed on the rest and the butt of the rod was placed on my chair between my legs. I tilted back my chair and shut my eyes for about ten minutes as it had been a very early start that morning at 3am and by now I was starting to feel a little rough!
Minutes later I was just dropping off into a dream state with Bob keeping an eye on things, when I heard Bob shout and then a suddenly brief pain in my gentlemans region as the butt section of my rod flew up and hit my dangly bits! I sat up like a shot and reached to grab my rod as it flew upwards with a barbel attached! Much to the amusement of Bob, I was rubbing my sore balls with one hand and trying to play the fish with the other!
The fish came in at a shade over 6lbs and it looked like things were about to kick off again finally! I had a couple of 5lb fish in succession before Bob finally got his second of the day. I felt sorry for the guy as we were fishing less than a few feet apart and it was my rod doing the business despite the rigs and baits being the same???? We even swapped sides for a bit and it wasn't until we swapped back that I started to get the bites again. Very strange???
As darkness started to fall, the fishing became frantic and another handful of fish came to my rod, leaving me on a total of 8 barbel for the day. Bob was luck enough to grab a third and the biggest for the day at 7lb 8oz.
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| Well done Bob! Wye gold!!! |
Not a monster by any standards but considering the very tough low water conditions, we felt we had done extremely well. We packed away at our allotted time an hour after sun set, happy that we had caught much of what was there to be taken. I lost a couple of fish including a much better one too.
