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| Lewis in action |
My first entry must be to tell you all about a days guiding with a lovely chap called Lewis Seaborne. Lewis has become a good mate over the last few weeks and after finally getting it booked up, we hit the river for his guided day out on the Wye. Lewis had never fished a river before let alone hooked a barbel! This was going to be an interesting day to say the least, made only more interesting by the fact that the river was on arrival, up by almost a meter and a half!
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| 8lb 3oz for Lewis |
The section I took him too is already a fast, shallow beat and the added water made things just a bit more difficult when teaching a total river novice. The water was carrying a lot of weed and debris and the flow was almost unfishable. We managed to hold the bottom of sorts in the nearside crease and 6oz of weight on the feeder kept it still enough for enough opportunity for a bite or two.
Things started very slowly and despite trying our hardest the bites just didn't develop....We spent the morning discussing a plethora of techniques from feeder and float tactics to marker work and feature finding. Finally around 12.30pm, the river had dropped a little and Lewis got his first chance of a fish. Unfortunately it was short lived and we had to pull for a break as the line got totally snagged on an underwater feature that was immovable...A few minutes after re-rigging and he was into another chance. This time it didn't go begging and his first ever barbel found the net! At 3lbs it was never going to set the world on fire but it did however get things moving and release some of the pressure for us both!
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| Lewis with his first ever double figure barbel from the Wye at 10lb 4oz! Well done buddy! |
Things started to become a little more fluent and another good handful of fish started to find the net before we called it a day at the venue around 6pm. Lewis had managed 6 from the day and to be honest, with the conditions that the river was in....that was a fine result! We then upped and moved to another section of river for the evening and I promised Lewis that there was a much better chance of getting in amongst a few slightly bigger fish. Well, I wasn't proven wrong and after just quarter of an hour in the new swim, Lewis had his biggest of the day at a tadd over 8lbs! The guys was over the moon and it showed.
Things went a little quiet for an hour and around 8'ish as the sun was dropping behind the trees, he got another chance of a fish. This one a smidge over 6lbs. Feeling a little let down after loosing a much bigger fish, some twenty minutes later....we were thinking of calling it a night. I'd already started to pack away the majority of the kit, when all of a sudden the right hand rod flew into life and I watched on as Lewis bent into a very powerful barbel.
The line flew from the reel and the rod whistled under the strain. It took a good few minutes to subdue the fish and finally a quick glance in the net told me all I needed to know....On the scales I gave him the news....'Do you want the good or bad news first Lewis?' I said....'Well, the bad news is it ain't 11lbs! But it is 10lb 4oz!' I watched on as his jaw dropped....We both laughed and the pleasure on his face told the whole story. What a result. 9 for the day, his first of the species and a double as well! Well done Lewis!
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| Nice one Bob x |
The past weekend has been a bit of a blur for me and a drive down to Berkshire saw me meet up with a load of old mates from my days spent on the Theale complex some 8 to 10 years ago. Some of them i'd not really seen since that time! We fished a private venue for 48hrs and despite having a wonderful time on a cracking water, I drew a massive blank.
The fish just didn't want to feed for the best part. Only Jess, Jon and Dean managed a couple between 8 of us. Jesse's fish both going over twenty pounds. I lost a fish to a cut off about 3 hours before packing up on the Sunday....I was gutted! I also had a lost chance on a zig rig about an hour later.
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| At least I caught a couple of small ones! |
Things had to improve on the fish catching front and a quick 24 hour session with Bob on a Newbury Club water sorted the problem. We fished a venue that I had unfinished business with and by the end of a very nice night I had bagged 3 low doubles to save the blank! Bob managed 3 as well, which included the biggest at 17lbs and the smallest at 5lbs!
After such a hectic few days, I really have to confess to being all but fished out! Despite this Natasha had been asking over and over for me to take her out for an evening on the Wye to see if she could better her 10lb 4oz fish of last season. Marianne and I loaded the car and we took her up for a quick 2 hour evening session. The river was really up again and the weed that was coming down made things almost impossible to fish. We set up in one swim and had to move after just a cast on each rod. The flow was too strong for even 6ozs of lead and the weed debris coming down just made it neigh on impossible to fish.
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| Mariannes first Barbel at 8lb 3oz! Well done hun x |
I was feeling deflated and upset that the only remaining chance to bring her out before the school holidays finished was looking as if it was going to be washed out and a total waist of time! A quick move to another likely spot with slightly less current saw things right though....and within a few minutes both the girls were into fish! Tash landed a nice one of just over 6lbs and Marianne took her first of the species at 8lb 3oz! What a result, a blank saved!
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| Unstoppable fish catching machine! Natasha with her second double figure barbel from the Wye. A new PB of 10lb 12oz! |
