Barbel on the Wye

My PB Barbel!

The rivers have been open a while now, and the initial mad rush to fish them has worn off enough to make it worth the gamble of making the trip to the River Wye and hoping there's enough space to get on. This year my plan was to try beat my PB barbel, which shouldn't be that hard as that's it pictured to the right! With that said, I tried a few times on the Wye, Severn and Thames last year with a couple of friends, and none of us managed to land a single one! I had an idea where I'd been going wrong though, so I got myself organised making sure I had the correct gear ready (instead of just taking thinned out carp gear with anything I "might" need thrown in the bag, like last year!) and set off to the Wye on a Friday afternoon with my friends Ben and Lavis.

Upon arrival at our chosen stretch and walking the ~900m of bank available, it became clear that the three of us weren't going to fit on, as there was only 1 peg left that looked like it had the remotest of chances of containing a fish, so we opted to hop back in the car and drive to a different stretch about 20-30 minutes away. This proved to be a good move as it appeared to be completely void of any anglers, though somebody had obviously been fishing one of the pegs earlier in the day, as they'd decided to leave all their empty crisp packets, drink bottles and what appeared to be a box of still wriggling wax worms spread all over the bank, how utterly delightful! We chose some pegs that we'd fished last year, the bigger of which I decided to share with Ben.

The view from my peg at sunset

Ben wanted to fish the upstream side, next to an overhanging tree, which suited me as I wanted the downstream side anyway. To my left was some deep slack water with a submerged tree, which I figured would be a good place for a crack at a river carp (another fish I want to tick off my list) while out in front of me was a faster channel between the weed beds that I hoped would contain a barbel or 2. I set my rods up (2.25lb fox stalker carp rods, a bit over gunned when the rivers not in flood but I can't really justify the expense of dedicated barbel gear). The left rod I set up with a 30g pellet feeder and a shortish braided hook link to a size 6 hook with a piece of hair rigged Peperami, to fish for carp in the slack water, and the right rod I set up also with a 30g feeder (on a quick link so I could change it if it didn't hold bottom) but with a much longer hook link of around 3 feet, made from 8lb mono, as I felt this was one of the areas where I'd been going wrong in the past, using hook links that were too short when the water was pretty low and clear. For hook bait I was going to try some spicy sausage flavoured pellets that I'd bought from my local tackle shop, Lobby's Tackle in Stonehouse that looked to be about 14mm. I chose to load the feeders with a mix of hemp, halibut pellets, betaine pellets, micro spicy sausage pellets and just enough meaty groundbait mix to hold it all together in the feeder for casting. It was while I was mixing this all up in my groundbait bowl that Ben got his first bite on his quiver tip, and from the bend in his rod I guessed it wasn't going to be a bream or a little chub...

Ben's first river carp

I stopped what I was doing to give him a hand landing it if he successfully managed to keep it from diving into the branches of the overhanging tree as it was obviously a decent sized fish. I had a feeling I knew what it was going to be, and my suspicions were confirmed as the golden back of a common carp broke the surface whilst he was desperately trying to wrestle it away from the snaggy tree. Wrestle it away he did though, and after a few minutes and an incident with a small snag in the margins, I managed to slip the net under it for him. My memory fails me a Little but I think it weighed in around 14lb and was pretty much fin and scale perfect, a cracking fish so well done my friend! This boded well for my carp catching efforts I thought, so after taking a few snaps I quickly got my pellet mix ready and my rods out into the water...

And how wrong I was! I was getting plenty of little knocks on both rods as the numerous small fish in the river plundered the contents of my feeders, but after a couple of minutes of casting out all went quiet and that's how it stayed for most of the afternoon other than a small chub. I made sure to recast regularly though, trying not to leave it any more than 10 minutes between casts so that I could keep a steady trickle of pellets going into my swim, another area where I felt I'd been going wrong in past by not getting enough bait in the water. Ben wasn't fairing any better either, and I was starting to lose confidence, but was still hopeful that I'd get a take later on during the magic hour around dusk. I slouched down in my chair to "rest my eyes" for 5 minutes when I thought I saw a big knock on my right rod. I sat back up, and as I did so the rod banged violently a couple of times shortly followed by the buzzing sound of my spool spinning into life! I quickly clicked off the bait runner and lifted the rod into the fish quietly hoping that something would pull back, and it sure as hell did! The hook was set, and the fish set off at a rate of knots downstream across the river, where I managed to turn it, but now it was heading towards the sunken tree, still ripping line from the spool. I had no choice but to put the brakes on and hope it turned before the line gave out. Thankfully my rod, being designed for surface and margin fishing for carp, has a soft through action, so although quite heavy for barbel fishing managed to soak up all the lunges with ease and the fish was soon coerced away from the tree and into the safety of the open water, and a minute or so later into the net, and I had myself a new PB barbel of 8lb 4oz, almost 8lb 4oz bigger than my previous best!

At last, a proper barbel! My new PB at 8lb 4oz

Needless to say I was feeling pretty chuffed, either my Chris Yates inspired beard was having the desired effect of making me more "barbely", or the changes I'd made were paying off (I suspect a combination of the 2)! Seems as in all the fishing shows about barbel you usually see a group of them feeding rather than just the one, I was eager to get my rod back out and try catch another. I'd just cast back out when Lavis appeared behind us. He hadn't had any luck all afternoon and was moving swims for the evening, so we told him of our carp and barbel success, which he thought was a wind up!

About an hour and a half went by with no further excitement. The sun had vanished below the horizon, time was running out and I was just thinking to myself that if I was going to get another I'd have had it by now when my barbel rod screamed off again! It felt like another good fish, and behaved much like the first, tearing off down stream. It didn't cause any dramas though and the beast was soon tamed and in the net, another barbel, probably a little longer than the first but noticeably thinner, and weighed in at 7lb 12oz, not bad for a stretch of river I was told they averaged about 6lb!

7lb 12oz barbel

Quite content that I'd finally got the hang of this barbel fishing lark, I started to pack my kit away ready for the journey home. I balled my remaining groundbait over my carp rod in a last ditch effort to try buy a run while I packed the rest of my kit down. I soon realised that packing up was going to take a bit longer than I first though due to the cosy and sloping nature of the peg, so I figured I may as well chuck the barbel rod back out for 10 minutes. It was too dark to see, and I had no groundbait to load the feeder with, so I "pub chucked it" in the general direction I had been fishing, with what I guessed to be the right amount of force to get the same distance I'd been casting with a loaded feeder. As I put the rod on the rest, Lavis turned up with his gear, ready to head back to the car. He told us he'd had a few nice chub, and I told him he'd just missed my second barbel, when the rod screamed off again! A similar battle to first 2 ensued, only this time it was too dark to see what direction it was heading in, other than downstream. There wasn't any drama though, and with the help of Ben it was soon in the net, a PB equalling barbel of 8lb 4oz!

8lb 4oz barbel, joint PB

This one was missing one of his whiskers, but other than that was in perfect condition, as were all the others that I'd caught. Ben took a couple of snaps for me and I rested him up in the net making sure he was well recovered before letting him go, as I had done with all of the fish. I decided that was a rather fitting end to a good days fishing, so packed my gear down and called it a day. I'm really starting to get into this river fishing, you never quite know what you're going to get, and when you do get something you know it was there because that was where it chose to live, not because someone chose to put it there like with a lake, which somehow seems to make it more rewarding. Hopefully it wont be so long before my next report, tight lines all!