Last minute success story!

A beautiful warm evening on the Wye

With the end of a very busy day in sight, I made a late decision to hit the river for the last few hours of the day. I ventured up to Monmouthshire around 4pm and after grabbing a fatty burger from one of those unhealthy fatty fast food outlets. On arrival I decided a walk of the whole stretch was in order.

After about 45 minutes of wandering around I realized that there are almost no areas of any real flow or oxygenated water on the stretch. This makes swim choice rather hard when the water level is exceptionally low and flow at an almost stand still.

I decided after all the exercise that the best and in fact only real option was to fish the 'going' swim. I'm not a lover of fishing the spots everybody fishes but with such a lack of flow it seemed the best option. At least the spot had seen plenty of bait in the last few weeks and if the barbel were going to be anywhere on the section, then here seemed the best bet.

On went a 2oz cage feeder on the upstream rod, with a 3 foot hooklink of Katran Fantom fluorocarbon to a size 6 CBS Trident hook and an ever faithful River Monster Dumbell boilie.
Almost instantly the nibbles started. As things hotted up I set up my down stream rod with a 1oz lead and a 12 inch hook link with the same bait and hook link as the upstream rod.

After about 15minutes of waiting, I had a recast on the upstream feeder rod. Then as I sat back the down stream rod slammed over! I struck into fresh air! Dismayed, I reeled in to find that the hook link had parted just above the hook. Annoying but not unusual for the Wye unfortunately. I re-tied a hook on and flung the rod back out.

7lb 2oz and a great start to proceedings!

Seconds later the upstream rod flipped around and the 1.75lb test curve was bent to the max by an angry Barbel! Despite the serious lack of water flow, she still gave a very good account of herself and took a good few minutes to defeat. At 7lb 2oz a great start to the evening.

My next opportunity came about half an hour later but I think it was a chub as the tip pulled over hard and sprung back with no more indications.

The downstream rod was next to go around 9pm and the center pin spun on its ratchet......click, click, click,ccccccccccccclick!!! Away we go again!

Another great scrap ensued and before long stunning Wye barbel no 2 was in the net! 8lb 9oz of pure gold was held up for the camera and I couldn't have been more delighted with the fact that despite the river having zero flow, zero oxygen and I was in the 'over fished' peg, I'd still caught 2 lovely barbel!  Things went decidedly quiet after this and despite numerous casts I only managed a small chub around 4lbs, before calling it a night.

8lb 9oz and a great way to end proceedings!!!

At last I think the fish are waking up on our club stretch...whether or not other swims will now start to produce there or not, we will have to wait and see!

Tight lines all
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