An Overdue Wye Break
After being so busy in the shop we really look forward to a break on the Wye, my favourite river. We had booked for two weeks but didn’t arrive to the Monday night so Lee, our son, and I didn’t get out fishing until the Tuesday night.
We always stay at Brobury House just below Bredwardine and have access to a couple of miles of little fished river.
As in previous years Lee and I have a match, not for the biggest bag or biggest fish, but for the most species, which means we use a host of techniques from spinning for pike to float fishing for minnows.
We started off barbel fishing and were concerned to read that the many thought the fishing was terrible. The river was well up and very coloured, so we started with a really smelly bait – spam (one of my trusted baits) – fishing it in deeper areas with smooth slower flow loose feeding with corn. This technique that has always seemed to work for me and sure enough, we had a few barbel up to 7lb. I also bagged a 4lb chub to put me one up.
With the river still full and only falling slowly, it was another couple of days before we could trot with maggots and worm, and even then it was still a fast flow and over 12’ deep which made bait control difficult. After steady loose feeding I caught my first dace, then a second which was smashed by a jack pike as I retrieved. I had little option but to despatch it, but it allowed me to wobble the bait on a single hook without success.
Lee turned up with a spinner and after a few casts hooked it. I had estimated it at about 4lb when it hit my fish, but this was a deep fighting fish which had no problem stripping line from Lee’s reel and when it surfaced we saw it was a lunker which tipped the scales at 16lb 3oz. A really beautiful long, lean, dark fish which was unhooked and slipped back into the river. Not surprisingly, I didn’t have another fish.
We also used this trip as a chance to meet up with friends, Chris Summers (pictured with a nice chub) from Leeda to plan our next trip to India scheduled for Feb/March next year after mahseer, goonch in the Himalayas, and Giant Trevally in the Andomon Islands.
A couple of days later the river had cleared and we decided to spin for perch working our way down from hole to hole. I caught a half pound trout, but Lee hit into another nice pike, and as it neared the net I realised that it was the same fish he had caught two days previously. It gave an equally good account of itself and was just a beautiful when we netted it with not a mark showing from its previous experience which delighted us both. After another session trotting, we both caught dace and chub but I managed a minnow so despite Lee’s superb pike, I was a species up with a minnow.
_opt.jpg)
One day we look forward to every year is trotting at Builth Wells for grayling, which we both really rate as one of our favourite species. Lee trotted from the bank whereas I wade out into the river, still enjoying paddling like I was a child. I can’t think of a more enjoyable way to fish, but I had brought my thin waders rather than neoprene ones and forgot that after a couple of hours in cold river water at this time of year, you lose your circulation, and when you try to get out you can’t move your knees or feel your feet. This was stupid and dangerous, but fortunately I edged my way out, shivering and it took hours to warm up again. I had caught a few grayling, a couple of trout and a salmon parr putting me two species up as Lee had also caught grayling, but as he fed the line, he caught a succession of minnows, over 40 by the end of the day, and when he caught a trout parr we were level again on species.
To get warm, I huddled up and feeder fished catching a stream of grayling, seven over 1.5lb with the best being 1lb 14oz. plus dace and a few chub together with an odd minnow – I think Lee had grouped them all together away from me.
As the light fell, we switched to large chunks of luncheon meat expecting chub to move in and weren’t disappointed. I quickly got broken off twice, once in a tree and once as a fish bolted downstream and so had to change up to heavier line. Lee caught a couple of 4lb chub and I had three in 15 minutes before we headed back to take Sandy out to dinner.
Our final session at Brobury was a couple of hours spinning before we packed up to come home. Lee again hooked a pike of about 8-10lbs which leapt over a tree branch and eventually shredded his wire trace. It is at times like this that we are always glad that we remove the barbs from treble hooks so it will fall out.
We now do this as a matter of course following an experience I had with a perch. It was hooked with a treble and ran into a tree in midstream. You could clearly see the fish, the spinner and the hooks, one in the perch and one in the tree. As I let the line go slack and as the fish shook its head, the spinner fell out of the tree and out of the perch, and I got my lure back too.
Just as we were about to pack up, I had a thump on the rod and caught a beautiful wild brownie of over 2.5lbs. What a way to end the week! The fishing had been hard, but by thinking more and trying different techniques, we caught a steady stream of fish all week long.
Before signing off, I must mention that if you are in the Hereford area, look out for Woody’s tackle shop. He always has friendly advice for the visiting angler on what is fishing well, regardless of what you are fishing for; so fish the Wye which I think is the best river in the country.