Ross and Mike

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 to the river Wye this time in search of barbel.

We met on the river bank at 7am hoping to land a barbel or two. The river had dropped about 6 inches and was gin clear since my last visit.

We set up in close proximity of each other to have a chat as well as fish. The method was the normal pellet and feeder approach that works so well on the river. Ross fished slightly upstream from Mike. It was to be a hot and sunny day which wasn’t going to help the fishing one little bit.

Ross was first away. I watched his rod arch over and he was soon playing a big angry barbel. It was using it’s pectoral fins and the tail to maximum affect in giving Ross the run around.

I moved up to Ross’s position and waded out to net the barbel in deeper water. Now Ross’s pb was caught last year and was an upper 8lber and this one had to be near that weight. I unhooked the beast and let it stay in the water while we prepared the weighing and camera equipment.

Well he had just caught his new pb at 9lbs 9oz

Mike in the mean time was not getting any bites. We sorted the rods out again and Ross had another barbel a little later of about 5lbs. Then disaster Ross lost 2 fish for no apparent reason. Very strange!

Things were not looking too good for Mike as he thought he needed to return home early so with Ross’s permission we mover slightly upstream of him as we thought the barbel were not swimming down to Mikes swim.

So after about 30mins in the new swim Mikes rod hooped over and he was playing a good barbel that fought well in the strong flow. Here the river narrows and the pace of the flow increases. Mike did a great job in playing the barbel and keeping it high in the water. It looked a decent barbel and sure enough it went 7lbs 5oz on the scales.

Now Mike blanked last time after losing a big barbel from the very swim he fished today. His brother David did land one. Mike though is a member of the 10lb river Wye club from his first session on the river.

So at least Mike was not going to fail this time. The news got even better for him as an hour later the rod nodded the 4 ft twitch from another barbel. This was great news as he confirmed he needed to leave early.

This barbel was another decent one of 6lbs 14oz

We were getting a few small chub too which to be honest are a pain in the behind as they clear up so much bait that should be there for the barbel.

Not such trouble for Ross he had a funny bite and played a nice chub to the net. At first it looked about 3lbs however on the scales and I’m pleased I weighed it as 4lbs 7oz was the result.

Another good Wye chub for Ross. I remember he had a 5lb plus back a few years ago the same day Mike had his 10lb barbel.

Mike had to depart home and so I suggested to Ross we change swims. Our move would take us only 200 yds upstream to another good swim.

We settled into the swim and put out some bait and waited. It wasn’t  long before we had a succession of small chublets and small barbel of 1lb or so.

Then the rod doubled over and Ross was left fighting a large barbel. The fish was beautifully long but thin from the spawning activities.

Then we had a series of disasters where barbel got snagged on something midstream. I think it happened about 4 times, plus at least once the hook pulled out. We checked the clutch and loosened it a little as we thought that perhaps it was too tight.

Ross went on catching lots of chub and mini barbel but no other bigger fish.

I’m not sure about what has happened in this swim as normally I don’t lose fish or feeders. I can only assume that a snag has been washed down in the winter floods. Need to look further into this.

Still a good day out for Ross and it would have been great if Mike could have stayed. A new pb for Ross and no blanking for Mike was a decent return for the day.

One thing that Mike missed was the two naked girls that swam through our swim one doing the crawl and the other the back stroke. Now I normally have a tale to say about the river Wye and girls on there that Ross is unsure about. But this one was witnessed by our good selves. That’s twice now as a few weeks ago there were a gang of naked people swimming in the H.Avon. Must be the weather.