That's wye!!
After last years Wye blank we were back. We have fished for long enough to not let a little weekend blank stop us.
We booked with Angling Dreams again and decided to fish 2 new beats, Thomas wood and Home farm. Adam had suggested these and we thought wye not?! (enough with the why spelling now?)
I was travelling down on the Friday to meet Davey at 9am and to fish that day and the next. I set the alarm for 0320 and would be leaving by 4!
After a good journey we met about 0830 at the Priory. We knew where we had to walk to for Thomas Wood, so set off. I had Pike and Barbel gear, Davey had...... fallen over!!
First sign of mud and he was on his arse. Off we went again, me with my gear and Davey with his Pike gear.
The river was very different to last year, there was more water and some great looking swims, although hard to access from steep banks. We carried on walking hoping to walk the whole beat first and see how many likely swims there were to drop in on the way back. I had found a few and Davey had... fallen over again!! Twice, it was not even 10am.
Making sure nimble foot was ok, we carried on. We found a great open swim and proceeded to Pike fish, deep slacks, fallen trees, it looked great. I tried sink and draw and managed only to cast into the tree behind us and get tangled. ( 2-1 I hear Davey cry)
We kept moving, trying likely spots and generally just catching up. It was a social as well as a fishing trip. We eventually got to the end of the marked beat, so I was happy we had seen it all. With half the day gone, we walked back and continued to fish the likely slacks, no one though had told the Pike that these were likely slacks! they were indeed unlikely.
We got back to the first swim. Davey again Pike fished while I got out a long hair rig I had tied. I was able to rig 3 premonition pellets (from the Trent trip) on it. I cast it into the middle of the river and sat down. The early start was catching up with me as I laid back on the unhooking mat.
Davey asking me what the rig was as suddenly my rod slammed over, the bait runner screaming. I grabbed the rod and held on. A great fight ensued followed by some excellent netting by Davey of the Barbel you see above.
When Davey finally got my sling, it weighed 5lb 10oz. I was officially a Barbel angler? 2 fish from 2 different rivers plus my Stillwater fish? I must be.
As I held it in the current for it to recover and it pulled strongly away, I had a big grin on my face, able to share a great fish with my dad. As I turned to give him a firm handshake I was greeted by a foot, again he was on the floor! third time!!
We fished till dusk, with no more fish and walked back to the car. A short drive this time got us back to the pub. Happy Hour greeted us and we enjoyed its company.
After a huge breakfast we hit the river again, Home Farm this time.
This looked very different, we found many more slack swims, so both of us Pike fished all day.
Davey coming up trumps with a great looking Pike that sadly did not want to see us.
Davey hooked it very close in, under a tree. I ran over and netted it. The pike went mental in the net, I have never seen one thrash so much. I lowered the bottom of the deep net in the water, hoping that being it the water it would calm down. It did not. It rolled like a crocodile so fast that with a treble in the bottom of the net, the rolling easily took up the 30 inches of net (I just measured it) in a few seconds. It was therefore at the top! as I tried to pull the net over the bank, it slipped over the net. Fine we thought, still hooked we thought. No, both trebles were neatly in the net!!
We had failed to put it on the bank, although it was defo a catch!? I estimated it at 8 to 9lb and it was a lovely looking fish.
We fished some classic Pike swims, slack, over hanging bushes, we had fish jumping, we had fish splashing in the margins under our feet but sadly we had no more fish that day.
We fished just into dusk and even the rain did not stop our enjoyment.
We are looking forward to Wye 3 next year, so I can get the puns going again and Davey can work on his idiopathic drop attacks!!
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