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| Stunning middle Wye scenery! |
It's been a hectic few days in the office! Lots of bait rolled and tons of leadcore cog links made up for customers web orders. Tuesday night I had a brief session on my club stretch of the Wye but it led to nothing but stress to be honest! The drive up was horrific with heavy traffic hindering the journey.
On arrival I armed up and fished the only hot peg on the stretch at the moment. I sat for best part of 3 hours without so much as a sniff! Darkness fell and I started to pack away my kit.
As I was doing so my right hand rod bent into action.....This followed up with me striking into a fish only to have the hooklink snap on the strike! I was gutted! I packed the rod away and with minutes left the same thing happened on the left hand rod just minutes later!
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| 5lb 9oz smasher! |
Keen to put Tuesday night to the back of my mind I booked a day in for Sunday up at Hereford and awaited the arrival of the weekend. I set the alarm for 3am but didn't get to 2am as I was up and ready to go by then. I grabbed a coffee at Macdonalds on the way through and by 4.45am I was setting up by the river. I have to say probably one of the most picturesque venues I've so far set foot on.
I found a swim at the top of the beat with lots of streamer weed and oxygenated water and set about putting a feeder with some groundbait and pellets into the swim with a river monster hook bait. I sat for a few minutes before my first fish took the bait and I quickly landed a small chub around 2lbs. I looked behind me to see a chap coming towards me with a fly rod in hand and a plastic bag????
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| An absolute beast at 9lb 5oz I think she was spawned out! |
Questioning the guy as I had booked the only two tickets on the beat for the day. He was rather evasive but assured me he was the Gilly for the beat. He then proceeded to set up and fish less than 5 yards down stream from me....I couldn't believe my eyes as this guy tried to cast a double handed fly rod into my swim! And very poorly I might add.
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| And yet more action! |
The wonder gilly had packed up and left for the day leaving me to enjoy the wonderful surroundings. It wasn't until around 11.30am before I finally hooked something worth talking about. A nice chub of 5lb 9oz found the net. A cracking fish for this area of the Wye.
I put the fish back into the swim and made a few more casts into the swim before finally around 1pm I got what I was after.....a cracking bite and a great scrap which ended with a stunning barbel of 9lb 5oz sitting on the mat ready for its photograph to be taken. Joel Biddle arrived just in time to do the pics as he was booked in to join me later in the day. Joel set up just below me and got a feeder rig out as quickly as he could. I was into another barbel quickly after the first and soon I was looking at another 6lb 6oz brute.
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| No 4!!!! |
Joel struggled a little and kept finding sharp rocks which claimed numerous feeders and a ton of hook links. I on the other hand was getting continuous knocks on the feeder and getting a little frustrated with missing masses of bites. I swapped my rig over to an inline feeder. I cut the ends of the feeder to make a kind of method feeder. This had a 2inch hooklink attached to it and a size 10 hook.
My next cast resulted in a very quick bite and another barbel of 4lb 10oz. Things were starting to look like they were going to go well for the day and the poor start was soon to be a distant memory! My next hours fishing was rather frustrating as both Joel and I missed endless bites! I tried numerous rig set ups and different combinations but all to no avail! Very very annoying! I eventually tagged a good fish but lost it too a snaggy tree root on the far bank.
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| Short link & method style did the trick |
After an hour or so we decided to have a move as the bites dropped off after I'd bagged another nice 6lb plus barbel. I walked the beat with my polaroids on and spotted a big shoal of large chub mooching around on the surface a few pools back up river. We had a go at tartgetting them on the float but to no avail. We set up feeder gear and threw a few baits at them only for Joel to bag one before the swim went very quiet.
Another move saw us back up to the top end of the beat again and Joel had a last few minutes fishing the swim I started in where he bagged another nice chub before he had to leave for home. I thought I'd make the most of the last hour or so and ventured back down to the rapids swim to try and see if I could hook what it was that was causing all the grief! I packed the majority of my kit back into the car before travelling with just a few essentials back down to the swim.
My first cast saw the tip pulled right over and another missed strike! Right I thought.....I'm just going to leave the rod out until something hooks itself! I sat with the line around my finger and the clutch set lightly. I couldn't believe how violent the bites were.....almost continuously the rod top was being slammed over but I just sat and waited.....How these fish weren't hooking themselves was beyond comprehension!
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| The fish were stunning & so was the scenery! |
Eventually the line started to come from the spool an I set about playing out a very angry barbel in the gloom of the dusk. Another nice fish of just under 7lbs found the net. What a result 7 for the day!
Light was fading fast and I just filled the feeder as quick as possible to get another quick few casts in. The rig was taken almost immediately by a greedy 4lb plus chub! Minutes later and another very agressive take saw me loose a huge barbel to the far bank snag again.....
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| Joel found a bit of success with the Chub! |
Another rig tied and another fish! This time a cracking 6lb plus barbel found the net and I was 8 up! I grabbed a few snaps and slipped her back before grabbing just one final bite before packing away for the day. I slipped all my kit into the bag and as I was about to reel in off it went with a cracking 7 pounder hanging on for grim death!
What a day it had been! 9 barbel had found the net and 4 chub. I lost count of the fish I missed out on but I reckon I could have caught in excess of twenty fish had I got it right from the off. Such a shame you have to be away an hour after dusk too as it was really starting to kick off as I left. Amazingly the guys further down stream really struggled and hadn't seen a barbel in 2 days!
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| The darkness fell but the bites kept on coming!!! 3 more fish followed this beast! |
