Mathews PB!

Mathews first of the day!

Sunday loomed and the kit was loaded in the car ready for another early start on the wonderful Wye. This session was to be on the Wye and Usk Foundation section at Sugwas Court. I've fished Sugwas before in October of 2013 and its a pretty little stretch of the river.

My partner in crime for the day and having his first session out on the Wye and first barbel session for over 20 years was to be Mathew O'neill. Mathew is an accomplished angler but has never targeted large river fish before.

He's caught barbel and chub to about 4lbs in the past by fishing for them on the River Trent many years ago with stick float techniques. The methods we were to be employing this time round would be different to any thing he had done before.

Just call me Mr Chub!

Things started well...I put Mat in the going swim and within minutes he had a nice chub on the bank of about 3lbs. This turned out to be a bad omen as the rest of the day until 6pm passed by without either of us having a bite worth striking at! The water was clear, low and weed rafts continually drifted into the swims, making fishing out further than 15 yards impossible.

At around 6.15pm Mathew had his first proper take of the day and landed a stunning barbel of just over 5lbs. He was ecstatic to say the least!

Within a few minutes I eventually caught my first fish of the day....a chub around 2lbs. This was followed up over a two hour period by a further 9 chub for my rod in 4 different swims! I just couldn't get the barbel into my swims. They were all sat under the tree roots in Mathews swim.

8lb 10oz PB for Mathew!

Mat's next fish was a real warrior and almost took his arm off on the take! 8lb 10oz of Wye warrior gold found the net and I can't remember the last time I had seen someone so excited by a fish! It was truly great to see his pleasure at catching the stunning gold bar.

Mat caught 2 more chub and finally another lovely barbel of 7lb 5oz! After such a torrid day of very little action, Mathew managed to make it into a very memorable one! Well done mate!