The KennetI wish I could be as upbeat about this river as I was over the lower Severn in my Christmas diary but although the recent good news regarding the abstraction will certainly help but there are a few more factors that are certainly affecting the fishing on the stretch I fish.
During October I managed nine sessions on the Kennet resulting in twenty three barbel caught, with four doubles. There was, however, no real consistency and there were a couple of complete blanks as well. I didn’t fish after dark, so all were caught during the day and quite a few before lunchtime, so there was no pattern either, despite a considered baiting regime.
My favourite swim has gone well and truly off the boil and I’m speculating over the logical reasons for that. I’ve no doubt that what appears to be more pronounced otter activity – four or five carcasses have been found on the opposite bank – has impacted on barbel behaviour. The survival instinct overriding the urge to feed and with fewer fish the shoals appear to be smaller most of the time. So whereas in the past there may well have been a dozen or so barbel in the swim and it was not too hard to induce competitive feeding with the caster approach, there now appears to be just one or two at best.
And then there’s the crays, Ronnie and Reggie rule this turf and they seem to have a veritable army of underlings down on the river bed protecting their patch! I don’t think I will ever forget walking back down the track to the car park alongside the cray catcher pushing a trolley with two wheelie bins full of the damn things – the result of a few hours emptying the contents of the traps. Trapping seems to make very little difference, the more that go the more that seem to appear, it really is a problem.
So, having endured a couple of blanks and finding it almost impossible to keep a bait away from the devilish creatures it was time to make a move downstream.
This downstream swim has fished well and I always ask the same question to my clients when I fish it, ‘How would you set about things bearing in mind we’re here all day, where would you place your bait?’
It’s fair to say the answer is always the same, across to the other side tight to the overhanging tree. When I say we’ll be fishing no more than twelve inches from our bank, right at our feet, to say their look is one of astonishment would be understating the moment!
To be fair I cast across to the tree if I’m roving and looking to pick up an opportunistic fish or when I’m planning on spending no more than ten minutes or so in the swim, but for an all-day session it is far better to draw the barbel away from their sanctuary over to a spot where they are not alarmed and will readily feed. It works a treat and all credit for pointing me in this direction many moons ago goes to Fred Crouch. It took me quite some time to fully appreciate how well the tactic works, and it works pretty much anywhere too, and as long as you exercise care and stealth the fish will feed all day long – if, of course, there are enough of them under the tree in the first place!
Chris had a fish of eleven pounds plus fishing just that way and John had fish that fell to exactly the same tactic, hair rigged caster fished over a bed of droppered hemp and caster that is regularly topped up.
I even managed to sneak one out for myself. This one came from the top gully swim, again fished close in, there are usually a handful of barbel under the near bank tree but the water is quite shallow so I tend to fish the swim with hit and run tactics after baiting with tiny cubes of meat and hemp and then resting it for a couple of hours.
So it’s definitely getting harder and it will be very interesting to see what next summer brings; I’ll stick with it a little longer because I love the place and it’s produced countless barbel with lots of doubles for me over the past ten years. Not only that I like the guys on the syndicate, a great group of people and my last trip to the river was not to fish but to meet up with them all for our annual Gentlemen’s Day get together.
The Wye
The last of the Wye Valley Experience holiday breaks took place and as always a superb group of guys turned up for a thoroughly enjoyable four days on the river. The barbel were playing harder than the previous trip but they were caught and one, from Geoff Maynard’s Llanthomas Fishery, took the scales to 11lb 4oz.
With a great deal of knowledge at my disposal I was eagerly anticipating meeting up with my good mate Matt Rand and Gary Newman for what we hoped would produce a blinding Rive Wy feature for Gary’s Angler’s Mail column. Just to show that the best laid plans don’t work out we blanked big style!
We tried as hard as you possibly can but the weather and conditions were not in our favour and we decided to pull the plug earlier than expected so Matt could at least enjoy a day’s fishing closer to home for a species that would be more likely to feed in the falling temperature!
It doesn’t always work out but we’ll certainly be back to put matters right.
This season the Wye seems to be producing a lot of double figure fish, almost a throwback to the halcyon days on the Red Lion stretch that Peter Smith took full advantage of. I’m certainly looking forward to catching a few for myself up at Hay and I’ve also joined a stretch above Ross that should provide plenty of arm aching action next summer, I’m really looking forward to that and I’m sure I’ll be telling you all about it in due course.
A fish-filled New Year to you all!
