Made to Graft.

 

 I challenge anyone who thinks angling is a fair weather sport and one that requires to be sat down all day eating sandwiches under a brolly. Angling for me is so much more and yes, the mantra " you get out of it what you put in ", certainly rings true, no time spent sat around wasting time, there is always a plan afoot, even when things aren't going the way you'd expect or hope.

 Brian and I on Thursday morning set off early before the motorways had the chance to scupper our progress, a three-day bender on the Wye was in the offing, we did not want to be held up! This trip was planned a good few weeks back as clients needed to be moved around to open up the gap and this was the best I could do, problem was the Wye was shooting up and with a full water table the levels shot up rapidly, equally when the rain stopped the river struggled to offload the extra water and when we arrived we were greeted with a strong tea coloured and powerful river, 2.8m on the gauge we knew it was going to be hard.

Around 2pm on Thursday.

 I began with a single rod and fished a small chunk of luncheon meat in the slacks and creases as I hoped in the coloured water the Barbel would be relying on smell and scent, what could be better than meat! 

 Well it turns out after a full day of roving around, none of them wanted it. 9 hours spent working every little slack I could find came up short on the Barbel front ( just one Eel ). As the night rolled in so did the rain and wind, which did turn out to be alot more than I thought would come down and typically the forecast was wildly inaccurate ( surprise surprise ), however, I wasn't just enduring the weather empty handed. As night settled in I set up a second rod which I fished with 1x 8mm Robin Red pellet with a tiny bag of 2mm and 6mm pellet in the margins, this decision turned out to be an inspired one as it provided me with my first fish of the trip around 1830. A strong battle in the flow provided a much needed bit of excitement!

8lb 5ozs

 I really wanted to get on the scoresheet having made a massive effort to be there, first blood wasn't a double but a sight for sore eyes as the digi's registered 8lb 5oz, it was a start. 2 hrs later I got another bite and I was away again, quickly I could feel it wasn't big and so it turned out to be, around 3lb but wasn't all the action for the evening as the best was yet to come. Sat there, cowering away from the rain and driving wind I noticed a tiny tap on the tip, almost instantly the tip wanged around I was in again ( Pellet rod again ) and this fish felt much better in the extra flow but is often quite difficult to gauge, some fight harder than others but this felt good. 3 or 4 minutes of tooing and throwing I finally got a good look at her and couldn't tell if I had done it.

9lb 0ozs

 When lifting her out she felt heavy, however once on the mat Brian and I both thought she just wasn't long enough to be a double and so it was confirmed on the scales, 9lb on the nose, slowly getting bigger but was that double figure fish I so badly want in front of me? only time would tell. 2230 was the cut-off time for us as we had had a long day and needed some grub, so not long after that 9lber we decided to get out of the wind and rain and eat some food.

The winning formula, 10lb Acolyte flourocarbon, size 12 hook,
1x 8mm RR tipped with bouyant maggot, 16inch hooklength,
size 8 swivel with buffer bead and 2oz gripper lead to 10lb mainline.

 Problem was my poor shelter was tormented all night in the gale force winds and driving rain, it made for a poor nights sleep so when the wind finally abated around 4am I got 3 hours unbroken sleep, not enough for me but I managed. The new day was started with bacon rolls, a cup of tea and a new sense of direction for the day. The previous nights action of the pellet meant I was going to stick with one rod, a 1.5tc 12ft Twin Tip Duo as I was finding bites during the day really fine and on the 1.75's I could barely see the indications and had no time to react as the blanks aren't as sensitive as 1.5's, all those changes bought me a little more joy over the course of the day as I got amongst a fair few Chub, most of which were giving very gentle touches which now I could hit and was converting. 

A fair few this size.

 Around 1pm I got a swim rocking on the Chub front and hoped a Barbel would be present as it looked ideal for a few to be held up in. Well, my hopes were answered as I got a couple of taps on the tip before slowly pulling round and I didn't need two invitations to that party! I was finally in again to a Barbel, first of the day and when I see it roll I thought it could have been threatening the 10lb mark, I couldn't wait to get it up the bank to reveal my prize for my persistence. 

9lb 2ozs

Sadly, she did not make the cut, but a nice fish all the same, not to be sneezed at. Bites were by no means easy to come by but at least I was getting them. A few more Chub came before dark and then the bites dried up. Dusk came and went but there was one more bit of action for me for the night in the shape of another hard fighting floodwater Wye Barbel.

7lb 9ozs

 As the evening wore on it became increasingly clear to us that the river level was rising rapidly and the amount of debris on the lines was increasing too, the clear sky meant a frost was very quickly descending and made for an uncomfortable last few hours to which we decided enough was enough, our 3 day bender was going to be a 2 day bender instead, we headed back to the car at 9ish and packed everything down and drove back to Kent, a tough trip but feel I made the absolute most out of what morsels I was offered.

 Scorecard read, 5x Barbel ( 3ish, 7.09, 8.05, 9.00 and 9.02 ), 12x Chub to 4.11 and 1x Eel. 

The final straw.