One Final Roll of the Dice.

 

 The pull of the Wye has had me travelling the 310 mile round trip to fish conditions that most would avoid, oddly I seem to love it! ( tongue in cheek ). I guess my rational for fishing the Wye in these conditions is that it is well documented that the bigger fish tend to continue feeding when smaller specimens batten down the hatches and switch off, also the time of year would suggest its the best time to try and target a double as all those high 8's and 9's during the warmer months would all now be doubles, I only want and need one!

 Frustratingly for me the only chance I've been faced with was the one I lost a few weeks back, that was put down to a stroke of bad luck, it happens to us all but I had tried hard to atone for that error even if conditions as I've said before aren't great. Rising cold water rushing down the valley never makes for easy visits, I simply had to grind out what I could. This time Brian would endure the visit with me, could he manage something that has so far eluded me? 

 We set about trying every spot possible with an eye on the gauges and weather forecast upstream, we knew fishing would be harder come the 14th of March ( last day of the season ), the impetus to catch a few on the 13th was strong. 

 My first taste of a Barbel unfortunately was a foul hooked fish that made life very hard for Brian and I as I simply could not control it, after plenty of persistence we managed to net the fish and safely release it, not long after that I finally got a Barbel that was hooked fair and square, this was quickly followed by another two Barbel, but nothing big, in-fact the smaller fish seemed to have switched on, not the sort of stamp I wanted to be seeing but better than nothing I suppose.

 The remainder of the day ticked by and by midnight I got my total up to 5 fish, everything was pinned on Thursday and that rising cold river which was going to be hard. Thankfully for me the final day wasn't a total washout as two more Barbel made it to the net, the best coming just 20mins before we packed up for home. 8mm pellet once again catching most of the fish.

 7 Barbel and 2 Chub, not the end I hoped for but the conditions this season have been very testing, fingers crossed it's a lot better upon my return.