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Wintle’s World of Angling

February 18, 2004

MARK WINTLE

Mark Wintle, an angler for thirty-five years, is on a quest to discover and bring to you the magic of fishing. Previously heavily involved with match fishing he now fishes for the sheer fun of it. With an open and enquiring mind, each week Mark will bring to you articles on fishing different rivers, different methods and what makes rivers, and occasionally stillwaters, tick. Add to this a mixed bag of articles on catching big fish, tackle design, angling politics and a few surprises.

Are you stuck in a rut fishing the same swim every week? Do you dare to try something different and see a whole new world of angling open up? Yes? Then read Mark Wintle’s regular weekly column.

The wonderful Wye – great for barbel and chub in winter (click for bigger picture)

WINTER FISHING ON THE WYE

When I started this column, one of the rivers that I hoped to fish was the river Wye near Hereford. I last visited this river in the summer of 2002 when I had some fantastic sport waggler fishing for barbel. But last summer passed without me getting any opportunity to fish the Wye, and for this season at least, I thought that the prospect of doing so were remote.

After Christmas, however, we decided to have a break at Holme Lacy near Hereford. Perhaps I could sneak a bit of gear into the car; maybe I’d get time to fish, would the river be fishable?

The weekend before we went, there was an open match at Hereford. In perfect conditions, (three foot up and falling) the river produced a pile of big weights, with 54lbs of dace winning and loads of big backup weights including barbel and chub. On the Wednesday night, down came the rain (remember my article on a very low Avon?). We arrived on the Friday, having crossed the Dorset Stour (5ft up, rising), the Bristol Avon (5ft up, rising), the Severn (many feet up, rising), to find the Wye a wild and swollen river. After an afternoon scouring Hay-on-Wye’s many bookshops for fishing books it was time to check out the prospects with Paul Woodward (“Woody”) at his tackle shop, ‘Woodies’, in Hereford. There was just a chance of getting on the river somewhere on the Saturday.

Woody, call in his tackle shop for the best advice on the Wye

Woody confirmed that the river had been over nine foot up that morning but was dropping fast. By late afternoon, it was six foot up and still dropping. It was a case of returning in the morning to recheck the levels, praying for a dry night, and then figuring out the best prospects. Because I had not taken much gear, I was a bit limited in my tactics. I had a float rod, light feeder rod plus two reels, and line up to 5lbs, plus a rover bag with the usual floats, hooks and feeders.

Saturday dawns dry and mild
Back at Woodie’s on Saturday, he confirmed that the river had dropped another foot. I fancied a go for some dace and Woody drew me a map, supplied some bait and a day ticket, and provided some excellent advice on what to expect. The swim I would try might be a little borderline for dace in the conditions but, as a backup, he suggested a couple of swims worth a crack for a big chub on legered meat. Two lads from Gloucester got equally fine advice for their attempt to catch some barbel. For the dace, I had plenty of maggots and groundbait, and for the chub a big tin of bacon grill. Conditions for fishing were perfect, overcast yet dry, no wind and a temperature of 52 degrees – not bad for mid January.

On the bank and bleaked out!
Following Woody’s instructions, I had little trouble finding the car park in Wye Street near the old bridge or my way up the river to a peg opposite the rowing club. The river here is wide and deep with a strong flow in these conditions. The colour of the river wasn’t too bad with about six inches visibility. The peg I chose had some steadier water close in though it was boiling badly at times.

The Wye – bleaker’s paradise (click for bigger picture)

I tackled up with a 12BB goosequill Avon with all the shot bulked two feet from the size 18 hook. Plumbing the depth I found around 13ft of water, and I set the float a foot deeper than this to start with. I began fishing with double maggot, feeding maggots in a heavy mix of groundbait to get some bait down. It was not long before I started getting bites.

Bleak. This section of river is famed for huge match weights of bleak by speed aces like Hadrian Whittle. Unfortunately, these are the last fish I wanted. I persevered and started to get little dace but these weren’t any bigger than the bleak. At this rate, I couldn’t see myself getting much at all. The bleak were taking the bait on the bottom and often shredded the maggots before the dace got a chance to find them. The depth caused me problems as well. You really do need a long rod to fish swims like this effectively – more on this later – so my 13ft rod gave me plenty of tangles with the float twisting around the rod tip. It was time for a move.

Time to change tactics
I walked ten pegs up to where Woody had suggested for a chub. Here one of the buttresses of an old railway bridge creates a long thin area of slightly steadier water about 10yds out. With the river pushing hard, it doesn’t look very slack though there was a crease but as this area can produce chub to over six pounds, I decided to have a go.

I tackled up my old Daiwa Cavalier quivertip rod with a Shimano Stradic 1000 loaded with 5lbs Maxima straight through to a size 6 Kamasan 983 with a link to a