I have guided Bill and Dan before and they are a pleasure to fish with. Dan and his brother had bought his Dad Bill a days guiding with me for a fathers day present. The choice was the river Wye. We met early in the morning ready to find the large barbel that frequent.

The river has been low and clear for much of the summer months with fishing being very difficult. Many have failed to catch so there is plenty of pressure on me to produce the goods. The methods are pretty good and so no need to change.

We started in one swim but found only small fish and then we travelled to another swim where in the past we had fished and caught.

The normal pellet and feeder approach produced a few barbel.

A nice barbel for Bill

The barbel were not queuing up to be caught and it was tough. It seemed like every time we mentioned tea  or coffee we would catch.

Bill with a good barbel

Bill was bagging up the larger barbel and why not it was his day.

They are both experienced anglers and could cope well on their own. Dan would land the fish for Dad. It’s great when you see father and son having so much fun.

Father and son

Dan also caught some great barbel and had lots of fun. The banter is always good between the both of them.

Dan with a good barbel

Its always easy for me to guide these great anglers and taking the photo’s is part of the fun.

playing a good barbel

Fishing the river Wye can lead you to become complacent with the fish and particularly the barbel. However others far and wide return to fish it. Andrea and I had been friends for it must be 4 years now. He lives in Italy and travels the world with his job. Whenever he is in the […]

The H.Avon has been calling for me to chase the chub and barbel. I fished with Andy and we both blanked, not uncommon that. I spent 5 hrs walking before wetting a line. Andy’s knees have been playing up so he can’t do all the walking. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked me to carry his […]

I’m not going to start to explain the reasons behind holding a Tench Fishers teach-in on the summer pit at Yateley in conjunction with Farnham Angling Society. The main reason was down to Bazz trying to sort out a venue for the Tench Fishers to fish and it all began to take shape with Ian […]

Had a couple of short session on the H.Avon recently. I have been spending more time looking and feeding the barbel rather than fishing. The river has been painfully low this year and it’s only the prolific weed growth that has kept flow back. Without this we would be in dire trouble for sure. I […]

I had guided Mike and Ross a good few times over the years and I really enjoy their company. Both are good anglers fishing for most species although recently they had a few days fly fishing on the Wyle, Avon and Nadder. Ross had just returned from Scotland fishing for salmon. We were now off […]

Bill and Andy Graham a pall of mine asked if I could guide two of his mates on the Wye catching barbel. Also would it be possible for him to tag along and make it a bit of a social. So the three of us met at 7am on the banks of the beautiful river. […]

Well here we go the first guiding session on the rivers. My guest for the day was none other than Tim a chap I guided in the winter on the river Itchen. He enjoyed himself so much that he booked me again to fish for barbel on the river Wye. Now this could have been […]

Lets just clear the statement, Andy at this point on June 16th did not say you should have been here yesterday!!!!!! Well the river season came around quickly and Andy and I were going to spend 4 days fishing the H.Avon. Things got off to a disastrous start with me having my fishing tackle stolen […]

I still hadn’t done much tench fishing for the season because of Mum’s health. Roger and Colin had asked me earlier in the year to guide them tench fishing. So time we duly up and we headed off for a couple of days tenching. I had got to the swim the day before to do […]