Words and pictures by Pat Gillett. 

Geoff Dace relaxing in his swim

Over the years I have had some good days fishing as a guest on Barbel Catchers Club ‘fish-ins’, so when my good mate Geoff Dace asked me if I would like to be a guest on a ‘fish-in’ on the river Wye, I jumped at the chance.

 

 

The ‘fish-in’ was to take place on Friday 22nd July, with the Midlands Region of the B.C.C. booking a stretch for the day.

Having never fished the Wye for Barbel before I did a bit of searching to see what information I could find, and it soon became apparent that the Wye seemed pretty much the same as the Middle Severn that I used to fish about 15 years ago. There are large shoals of barbel in certain swims with the rest of the stretch holding the odd one in most swims. With this in mind swim selection would be key to having a good day.

We arrived at the venue at about 1.30pm, there were already a couple of the members there and one of them was just returning a barbel, so the fish were obviously feeding. A quick walk of the stretch and I soon found what I was looking for, a swim that to me, absolutely ‘screamed’ barbel. This was on the inside of a bend and about 120 yards above a shallow ford that went across the river. There were banks of streamer weed to about 30 yards out and then a clean gravel bottom, which proved to be around 3 to 4 feet deep. From my time fishing the Middle Severn this looked a perfect area for holding a large shoal of barbel at this time of year.

Geoff got in about 2 pegs above me and had 2 barbel in the first 10 minutes while I hadn’t had a bite in the first hour, which left me thinking about a move, however just after the hour mark my downstream rod was away and after a good fight my first Wye barbel was in the landing net, only a small fish of about 5 1/2lbs but still very welcome all the same. Another small one followed 10 minutes later so I decided to stay put.

I then pulled out of a good barbel and on checking the hook I found that the ‘point’ had turned over. I put a new hook length on and within 2 minutes was into another barbel, the hook also pulled out of this one. On inspection the hook looked

My chosen swim

fine so I recast, only too pull out of another barbel again within a minute of the feeder hitting the water. So that was 3 fish pulled out of in successive casts. Now I doubt if I have hook pulls on more than a couple of barbel every season, so something was definitely wrong. I had been using fairly long hairs so I decided to shorten these right off so that the bait was actually touching the hook. This worked a treat, as I never lost another fish all evening. I have seen this before, when the fish are feeding so confidently that they pick the bait up in their lips and move onto the next bit of food without swallowing the first, therefore with a long hair the hook never goes inside the fishes mouth.

By the time I packed up at 9.45pm (started about 2.30pm) I had taken 15 barbel and 4 chub. None of them were big fish, with the biggest barbel going 8lb 10ozs, but a very enjoyable first barbel session on the Wye.

I used standard feeder tactics, feeding with the mini pellet and crushed boilie mix and fishing with either 16mm pellet or special crab hook baits.  The pellet produced about 70% of the barbel with the special crab the other 30% and all of the chub. It also proved how instant a barbel bait the special crab is, as I doubt these fish had ever seen it before.

One really noticeable thing was the feeding spells of the barbel. You would get nothing for 30 minutes or so then you would get 3 or 4 fish in successive casts, with the fish hitting the bait almost on the drop. I would say that you would pick off a

Beautiful wild barbel - my best of the trip.

few from the shoal and then they would move off and another small shoal would move in later and I reckon the sound of the feeder being recast was actually attracting the barbel to the bait.

The day also proved to match up with the research I had done on the Wye, there must have been a load of barbel in the swim I chose, but the rest of the stretch was very hit & miss with approximately 17 barbel and loads of chub being caught by the other 6 anglers.

It was a really different day to what I have now become used to. I am usually fishing for one or 2 bites in a session, so made for a nice change. I also saw 3 salmon come clean out of the water, which is something I never see on the rivers I usually fish.

So there we are, my first River Wye barbel trip, a really nice enjoyable day, in lovely surroundings, with good company and some exceptionally hard fighting (for their size) wild fish.

Cheers

Pat Gillett

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