A few days guiding with Paul and Andy on the Wye

Andy and Paul had contacted me back in early spring asking whether it was possible if I could arrange a few days barbel fishing on the Wye. They had been fishing the Severn recently without much success, well not exactly true Andy had been struggling. Paul is a very accomplished carp fisherman and had seldom fished the river let alone landed a barbel.

I had a couple of beats on the Wye in mind but decided on fishing the Courtfield beat which does get busy but does produce some great fishing. As you have seen in other blogs I had been doing quite well there recently.

The river had been up and down since the beginning of the season and very coloured. I feel really sorry for Don who looks after the fishery as the salmon fishing has been none existent this year because of this. This is his passion, so it’s been great for barbel fishing but terrible for him.  This reminds me of the saying “one mans meat is another mans poison”. My it must be difficult to wait and wait for the right conditions. His wait will continue as you will read later.

Paul and Andy had a long 3 hour journey to make to get to the fishery but still arrived at about 8pm in the morning. Paul was not too well having laryngitis and was in a very poor state. However he was soon all dressed up with clothing and paracetamol. We looked at the river and decided who was going to fish where. Results were quick in coming as Paul was soon into a small barbel and then  a chub. Andy and I sat in a good swim but there wasn’t much activity. After Paul had his second barbel of about 5lbs it was time to move Andy down to another swim.

Guess what, within a few minutes he too was catching some good barbel. This continued for the remainder of the morning up to about lunch time. Paul was slowly being drawn into an unheathly look. He still managed some good fish chub and barbel.

Andy meanwhile was slowly catching more and more barbel and improving on his pb’s. Now he told me he had bought some barbel rods from a friend I know Bob Gill. Now Bob knows how to build a rod or two. So this was his first outings with the rods and he was christening them big style. One of the things Bob if you read this he has added a keeper ring held in place with insulation tape. We had a good laugh at this……only joking Bob.

I don’t own a rod built by Bob, but the 2lb T/c rod built by him was an excellent tool in the flooded conditions on the Wye as you will see in the video.

Then something happened which is always unexpected, Paul hooks into something much larger and lands a very good barbel. Then it’s Andy’s time a few minutes later.

I’ve put together some video of the session.

There was a disaster later when Paul’s temperature was reaching towards 40c and he needed help in a big way so Andy took him off to Ross to get some help from a doctor. Then could we find a 24hr pharmacist for the antibiotics, no! So he spent the night trying to fight the fever.

Andy finished the day with 17 barbel and a good few chub. Even Paul who was struggling managed 7 barbel and some chub.

I said not to worry about getting there too early in the morning. I was surprised to find Andy at the fishery at 8am. Paul looked better but then went in search for the antibiotics he needed.

I felt terrible because Paul is a very hard working guy I won’t go into specifics here but his job involves tree surgery and all kinds of expert digging and ground work. He is no wimp but he was clearly not well.

When Paul returned with a fantastic shopping bag of fruit and food he was well up for a start again. Disaster again for Paul the first 4 put in’s resulted in 4 lost feeders in the swim where Andy had caught his fish. this lowered the enthusiasm a bit but soon we were at it again hooking and landing some good fish. To be honest a couple caught my eye.

 

 

Normal service resumed. And we continued catching the barbel and some good chub.

 

 

Have a look at this video.

I tell you what the final count was another 12 barbel to Andy and 8 to Paul. they both caught a couple of good size chub too that were 4lbs 10oz for Andy with Paul just beating him with one of 4lbs 13oz.

During the evening we went back to the pub where they were staying and had a really nice meal and chat, and review the photo’s.

The next morning we were to meet at another beat. This started off well with two fish each and then the water started to increase in flow and height. Andy at the lower end of the fishery started to get water logged and the river started to rise dramatically and then it became to dangerous to stay in the swims. Before this started both Paul and Andy had caught 2 barbel each. Paul lost a good fish ” I just couldn’t hold it” was his comments. Andy and I had chest waders on but safety comes first in my books and we retired to other swims. Have a look at this graph. Please bear in mind that we had little rain near us but upstream in the catchment area they must have had loads. Please think about this as the river does increase in height rapidly

 

However the river continued to rise and rise and trees and branches came tumbling through the swims. Included in this was the odd sheep!!!

Time to review the situation!!!

To be fair I could see the situation deteriorating further as the river level increased minute by minute. The amount of debris now coming down made it difficult to fish other than the slack water. The boys decided to call it a day and have a leisurely journey home.

So what a good couple of days fishing.