Continued Wye success!

A week or so later I found myself desperate for the buzz I'd had on the River Wye a week earlier! I just couldn't shake off the buzz that I'd now got stuck with. Another trip had to be on the cards and I was determined to get back up the river and bag a few more bars of Wye Gold!

my first of the 2nd session at 5lb 15oz

The second trip up saw me try a new swim a few fields up from my previous visit and I settled in for what I hoped was going to be a repeat of the previous week. Things started fairly well with a nice 5lb 15oz barbel finding the spreader block before darkness fell. I was feeling exceptionally confident about the evening and after spending the whole of the last week ensuring I had got my tackle and bait as good as I could possibly get it, I felt a red letter evening may again be on the cards?

It was a strange evening if i'm honest and not quite as good as I had hoped albeit I did bag 3 fish including a nice 7lb 7oz barbel and a lovely chub all falling to the River Monster Boilie.

7lb 7oz barbel

The fish were a little bit more spasmodic than the previous week and I put it down to angling pressure as it was a Monday evening and I felt that with the levels of litter that had suddenly appeared on the bank side, it was likely that the place had been heavily fished over the weekend by some less than decent people....God I hate to see litter! Why not just shove it in your bag and take it home?

The third trip up the river was a little more than 48 hours later and my son Thomas had showed interest in wanting to have a go at river fishing and catching his first ever Barbel. Tom is 14 and has caught a few wonderful carp in the past up to 25lb 8oz but he's not an avid angler and usually only comes out a few times a year when the mood finds him. Well, we arrived on the Wednesday night just as it was getting dusk'ish and got set up with a rod each.

Thomas Supple with his first ever Barbel of 6lb 2oz

We fished the same spot as I had on the Monday evening and I put Tom upstream to the place i'd had the 3 from on the previous session. It was some time into darkness before we had our first inquiry. Tom's rod was twitching away and then violently sprung over signalling a vicious take! Tom was quite taken back with the bite and the ensuing battle which wrenched him all over the bank side! After a good few minutes of tussling he was the proud captor of his first Wye Barbel and a prize specimen of 6lb 2oz! Great result and he was ecstatic to be holding such a beautiful fish. He was even more ecstatic when the same rod hooped over again some 15 minutes later and this time he had the fight of his life with an incredible 8lb 12oz barbel! After doing the photos and weighing the fish I let Tom put the fish back correctly upstream facing and you could see how much it meant to him by the look on his face! Great!

Tom with his new PB 8lb 12oz barbel! Well done pal x

I struggled all evening with just a few trembles on the right hand rod to talk about! It didn't matter to me though as I had done what I had set out to do and that was to get my lad into his first Barbel. We packed up enthusiastically and headed for home with lots of talk about coming up together again soon and how much we'd enjoyed each others company.

My forth trip up the following week, was with a good friend of mine Gary Brooks. Gary is an excellent, well accomplished coarse fisherman who's happy to put his hand to any aspect of the sport with very good success! Gary had to date though never caught or seen a barbel on the bank! Well I'd promised him that would change tonight, so I had to deliver! We arrived with plenty of light left and I gave Gary a guided tour of the river and the likely looking spots. A quick chit chat about techniques and swims and we were setting up in a nice wide double swim that would accommodate the pair of us.

Gary made his first cast around 7pm just after a rowing boat had gone through our swim and as soon as his rod hit the water he was into the first fish of the evening! To say the bloke was shocked was an understatement....he just couldn't believe he'd landed on top of a big barbel quite like that?

Gary Brooks with his first ever barbel of 9lb 6oz!

A cracking scrap on his light 1.5lb tc rod and after a few minutes we were looking at the golden flanks of another wonderful Wye specimen and Gary's first ever of the species at a cracking 9lb 6oz! What a way to start proceedings!

Things went decidedly quiet and it wasn't until almost last knockings that my rod eventually got snaffled and I hooked into what felt like a very big fish...

She ripped of downstream at a serious rate of knots and before I knew it I was hanging on for grim death just to insure I'd was still in touch with the fish. I managed to gain some of the 50+ yards of line back onto the spool and eventually she succumbed to tiredness and I netted a fantastic new PB of 10lb 8oz! I was over the moon and it was magic to have my good pal Gary with me to enjoy the moment too.

Another new PB for Keith at 10lb 8oz!