Tough times

Gorgeous but devoid of fish???

The last few weeks of river fishing has been rather quiet by all accounts for me personally, with just a handful of fish finding the bank.

I've put this down to a couple of factors which include low water conditions and bright sunlit days and low oxygen levels. All this or I've just completely lost the ability to catch fish?? Another possibility!

This week has done little to bolster my ailing confidence and a trip out to a day ticket stretch of the Wye with friends Liam and Bob left me feeling worse than ever come Thursday evening....We met up at early doors Thursday and with it being Liam's first ever trip up the Wye, we were hoping like crazy that he'd bag his first barbel!

The swims looked pristine and the 3 of us set up in close proximity in an attempt to focus the feeding area in a localized area we could all grab one or two out of.

Well at least Liam caught something!!! lol

This proved to be a bit of a waste of time as nothing happened for the first few hours at all. In fact this was the way most of the day turned out! We moved swims to a spot further upstream around 1pm and the faster water there provided Liam with the first bit of action of the day. A nice little chub finding the net. Bob also managed 1 quickly after too. I on the other hand sat and sat and sat! I just couldn't grab a fish at all.

After 2 lost barbel due to hooks pulling out which baffled us??? we chose to move back to the first peg again for the evening and the slower but deeper water. Again we sat for a few hours and the rain kept falling out of the sky! The river rose a good 4-5 inches in the day and I think this probably didn't help matters very much.

Just as I was starting to feel like it was going to be a blow out blank for me, I finally got a strike-able bite that resulted in a chub of around 4lbs....At least I hadn't blanked. The day was great fun and thank god we had lots of giggles and banter as the fishing was truly awful!