Red letter day on the Wye?

I was lucky enough the other day to take a day's fishing on the Wye with Bob James and a friend of mine, Howard Mann. Since this was a first for me (barbel fishing that is) I was a touch excited and therefore up at 05:00 to be there for around 09:30 - a 210 plus mile trip each way, so it had better be good...

The trip across to Hereford was simply stunning - okay, it started out a little misty and cold, but as the sun came up, the landscape emerged slowly from the mist and damp to give one of those classic autumnal mornings when you realise that we are all lucky to be alive and on this good earth. Joe Cornish would have been chomping at the photographic bit, so to speak!

Well, back to fishing and Bob put me into a lovely tucked away swim with a nice piece of water in front of me with a good steady push coming through, a deep channel roughly half way across down to about 8 feet deep in the rock bed and a tree-lined far bank. The swim screamed chub and barbel...

I was fishing with my new Grey's X-Flite Barbel rod with the 1.75lb avon top through to 14lb Ultima flourocarbon coated mainline for a bit of abrasion resistance. At the business end we fished a 2 oz Fox open ended mesh feeder on a Fox helicopter rig. The hooklength was an 18 inch length of Fox flourocarbon to a size 10 Fox hook. No prizes here for guessing Bob is a consultant to Fox ;-)

Bait wise, we were using 14mm Richworth KG-1 hair-rigged boilies, with Bob's secret mix of groundbait for the feeder (I saw some crushed hemp, 10mm KG-1 boilies, some 2 or 4mm pellets and some other goodies go in, but could not tell you it all).

I think it was about 10 minutes for the first bite to come through from a nice little barbel of about 4lb or so - my first ever barbel, rod christened and a grin from ear to ear. This is what I had come for, and the day had only just started.

I think we fished for a not very solid (read frequent breaks for a chat, cup of tea, bite to eat etc) seven or so hours, and finished the day with 10 barbel and 10 chub. My biggest barbel took the scales down to a round 9lb, not huge but a great fish for a first time barbel fisherman (and hence its inclusion at the top of this blog). The best chub probably went 4lb or so. Howard topped the day with the largest fish at 9lb 10oz with a cracking barbel from a swim about 100 yards downstream.

The trip back to Kent was mostly in darkness, and that was probably for the best, as all those guys and girls in suits coming back from work would have been seriously concerned by the grinning idiot in the Land Rover.

Well, that was my first real trip to the Wye for barbel - and it won't be my last, that's for sure.