River Taff Double, That's a Wrap!!

 

 After a very relaxing week away in Tuscany with the family over the first week of October I was pretty keen to get something pencilled in for later in the month. Well, that time had come and I was ready to go for Friday morning. My plans as always are constantly changing to suit the conditions and go with my gut instinct. The original plan was to hit the Severn and Wye, then it changed to the Teme and Severn. However my mate Jerry Gleeson had had some success on the River Taff in South Wales and after much deliberation this was what I settled on.

 With plenty of miles (171 to be precise) to eat up I left in the early hours of the morning and when I did finally arrive in Wales I opted to grab a couple hours sleep in the car with my alarm set for first light. The alarm went off and slowly got myself together, initially the plan was to fish 2 rods static and build a swim and hope for the best, problem for me was that I couldn't hold a bait out in the flow even with 5oz leads, the amount of leaves coming down in the swift current quickly forced a change in my approach!

Dawn on the Taff.

 There could only be one tactic, yup - you guessed it. Rolling meat.

 Rolling meat needs no introduction, I use it all the time and it is arguably the most effective way to target Barbel, regardless of the type of watercourse. Given the fact first light was going and the birdsong was growing louder I set about my task. The swim I chose was a wide area, quite pacy throughout with plenty of eddies and swirly water, the sort of place Barbel might be sat.

 I had been rolling around for maybe twenty minutes before I got my first indication, a quick double tap on my finger as I coerced the bait along the gravel bottom, the initial touches were subtle, the second enquiry about 10 seconds later was anything but! A vicious pull on the rod that near pulled the line into and through my indicating finger! For the first minute or so I was met with pure power in the flow and suspected a Barbel simply from the bite, but given its fight I didn't think it was particularly big, it dawdled around the back of the eddies and dithered in the slacker water when the fish did come closer, after 3-4 minutes she finally showed herself and I was pleasantly surprised, plus it didn't take me long to pop the net under her.

Beautiful! 

 Measured, no frills, calamity free, perfect. But how big was it? upon first glance when I calmed down it became clear very quickly that I was staring a R.Taff double figure straight in the eye! a conservative guess I thought 11lb+ and was not wrong, 20minutes of fishing the Taff and I caught a big one, how very fortunate for me 😆 proves you should always trust your gut feeling.

My R.Taff double @ 11lbs 10oz.

 River number 17 completed and all before breakfast time too!! What a superb result.

 What a fish, what a journey, all over in no time. If any locals reading this or anglers who frequent the Taff will know its by no means an easy river, blanks are very much commonplace and areas where the Barbel live are pretty condensed from what I gather, so I felt doubly chuffed with myself and taken on my favourite method. Executed correctly it is devastating!

 Once I released that fish I wondered where to go next, before I did move off I met up with one of the bailiffs (Graham) where we chewed the fat for a while and got to learn a bit more about what is now a fairly clean river, like many across the united kingdom they were worked endlessly for various processes. 

 Once Graham had left I hot footed it to the Bristol Avon for a look about and then moved on to the R.Itchen which will be on my next blog post.