On the Wye with Mick and Jamie

I do like sleeping in the back of the car it all adds to the excitement. However after you get soaked to the skin the day before it takes the edge of a little. Still after a good night rest it’s up and off to meet Mick and Jamie.

Both these guys have fished the Wye on numerous occasions for barbel and Mick fishes the Wye championships each year so they are experienced anglers.

We were on the river by about 7.15am and the flow and colour was up a little from the previous day but not too bad. So we set up quickly and started fishing. The beat is one where you have a good chance of landing plenty of barbel. It was Jamie’s birthday so I hoped he would have a great day.

Little did we know what was coming. The day started off brightly enough again with warm conditions.

Jamie was the first to get a barbel it was that 3 ft twitch that got him all excited. The barbel put up a tremendous fight in the strong current. However being a seasoned campaigner  he soon had it in the net, 7lbs 14oz of hard fighting Wye barbel.

Birthday boy Jamie and a 7lbs 14oz barbel

The river started to rise by this time.

A couple of chub came to the net not of any size. I thought best though to take a photo of a small one with Mick to ensure he got into the blog.

Mick and a small chub

Just as well I did really as the river began to rise very quickly. This was obviously from the rain of the previous day. This is one of the first floods of the season and plenty of small pieces of debris started to catch on the line. This dragged the feeders into snags and rock and we started to lose plenty. So there was little choice other than fish in the slack just in front of us.

Then much larger trees and branches drifted down in the current making things very difficult. The river was rising still and quickly.

Whole trees started to flow downstream

We were down a small path close to the waters edge and when there is a flood on you need to be careful not to get cut off. So I always put a marker stick in the bank. When the water reaches the top of the marker it’s time to leave while you have a chance before the path is submerged.

Two inches to go !

So with the marker in place the river continued to rise. Fishing was difficult and nothing came along to our baits other than the odd chub. Still with lines in the water we were in with a chance. The rapid rise in the river stopped for a while however it was still rising. At 5pm the decision was made to abandon ship as the top couple of inches of the stick was showing and the fishing wasn’t easy.

So a very difficult day on the Wye in the first flood of the year. I was so disappointed for the chaps, however they knew the river does get wild when in flood.