School half term holiday`s are here, so I grabbed the chance (with the weather looking good for it too) to get out, before they began. Things were not as fast and furious as I was half expecting, but the fish did come and the rod`s did bend. This fish has the typical head, showing long Barbules and a mouth to take all in! It was one of the fish from the river Severn taken into darkness. After putting a fair amount of hemp into a swim (more than I usually would) I took a stroll along the fishery with a rod in hand and dropped into several swims over an hour or so during the afternoon. I had managed to catch 2 bream during the afternoon and met another angler who had managed to catch a couple of nice barbel! Bouyed with optomism, I returned to the swim with hemp down, for the spell into dark. First cast after 25 minutes the rod tip plucked and knocked, leaving it another few minutes paid off, as the rod then dragged round for an extremely hard fighting fish of 7lb! It was not yet dark but twilight, but my camera flash makes it look like total darkness! After darkness, expecting the barbel to be feeding well on the bait already in the swim, I was surprised not to get another bite for an hour or so. When the bite did come it was a hard pull but not the expected barbel, instead it was a large Chub of 5lb 1oz! Not too dejected I decided to move to another swim altogether, and rove for an hour. This paid off in the end on the 3rd swim visited, the misty rain falling and visability bad, I could HEAR my rod being pulled in the long grass as I had turned to bait the other line!! “barbel on”. At 6lb 12oz a result and time to head back to the car for supper and a move to sleep at a swim I know well on the Wye!
This was one of the lovely Wye fish I caught before sleeping in the car and heading home for breakfast….