AT. LONG. LAST.
This part of the challenge was always going to be a difficult owing to the amount of Barbel and indeed Chub present. I have spent over the course of 10 trips (including this trip) 168 hours of angling with 62 Barbel caught, the 62nd being the one I was after, everything in between has been enjoyable and testing in equal measure.
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| A wonderful part of the world, what a vista. |
Learning a river that was in flood 9 trips out of 10 had presented a challenge in itself but with my experience increasing with every trip I never once felt out of my depth and conversely enjoyed the fact it wasn't a gimme.
The river had been up to a shade under 4m and I was keeping an eye on the river as I only had 2-3days available, fortunately for me my planned days were forecast to be bathed in sunshine, not ideal for Barbel but at least I wasn't going to get wet, so with the level at 1.98m when I arrived I felt like a couple of Barbel would be possible. However...the Chub were ravenous and made fishing difficult, every spot I dropped in the Chub made themselves known, missing many but landed 26 Chub with the best possibly a 5-pounder which went unweighed, that said it wasn't all Chub as 3 Barbel also got in on the act, all three were around the 5-6lb bracket which were great fun in the pacy water off the slacks.
Once dusk had come and gone I thought the best time had gone so I decided to drop a handful of small boilees and pellet in a swim next to where I was cooking dinner and let that rest whilst I filled my face. The plan for the night was to give it until midnight - 1am and then grab some sleep and arise around 6am to get back on it.
A few hours passed by with the odd knock on both rods but put it solely down to debris coming downstream, around 2240 I got a steady pull round on my downstream rod which grabbed my attention momentarily, I thought it was more rubbish collecting on the line but with a 2oz lead on in the margins I hoped it wouldn't move out of position, I began to sit back down when it pulled round a little more forcefully by which point I felt it was now dragged out of position, I picked up the rod and lifted it up and BANG! the rod slapped round, that gentle pull round and hold twice must have been now what I was latched into and it felt like a big fish straight away, very slow and deliberate in the flow I knew it was a good fish so I played it sensibly and within 3-4mins I caught glimpse of it and was very confident it was the double I sought!
Soon enough the fish slowly tired and slipped over the cord of my net, it surely had to be the fish I desired, it looked a double!
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| River No: 27 ✅ Get in there!!!! |
Once I had set up my camera, tripod, laid out the mat and got the scales and sling set I lifted her out and felt like a double all day long, on the scales it was a lot closer than I thought it would be, she settled on 10lb 2oz but weighed her again just to confirm and actually settled on 10lb 1oz the second time around, so I went with the lower of the two weights, but it didn't matter, it was my WYE DOUBLE!!!
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| Excellent !!!! |
The cheesy grin told you all you needed to know, plenty of effort 290mile round trips, enduring very cold nights, long periods without a touch last winter, this was my reward for the efforts pumped in, Barbel number 62 was the magic fish.
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| Cheers all. |
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| Leaving for the last time. Diolch Afon Gwy. |
