River Wye Double, That's A Wrap!!

 

 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. 

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! 

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!!! 

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.

Cheers all.

Leaving for the last time. Diolch Afon Gwy.