River Wye - Trotting and Triboluminescence

Some open heart surgery to the Jimny's subwoofer the green LED showed we were back in business again, but for how long ? the main 10 pin connector is showing signs of abuse from Mixcloud and the volume knob where I'm sure at one stage it must have overheated and tripped the thermal control. At least the hour and 10 minute early morning journey to a different world went without drama.

I’m very much a novice with this big fish trotting malarkey however last season that changed when I managed to catch some cracking chub >5lb feeding bread mash and then trotting a piece of flake under a large buoyant stick float. I was having brilliant fun catching chevin, well until I snapped my 14ft Drennan Acolyte Plus that is, so an upgrade was made to something more befitting the intended quarry.

So now I have a Diawa 15ft Connoisseur Pro Match Power Float Rod with an Abu Garcia 507 MKII Reel and the Acolyte after buying a replacement section was confined to fishing the canal on the lift method. The Acolyte was a joy to use I must admit because it was so light but considering I wanted to up my trotting game to fish for Barbel going forward that rod wouldn’t cut it.

Anyway this latest outing to the Wye was the first proper go on the set-up and to add to that especially I’d be wading as well which I’ve not done a huge amount of, but the conditions looked conducive for it.
Now naturally an Angling Coach to the Stars, I’ll wait for him let to tell you, (press embargo) where good mate Nic from Avon Angling was the ideal companion for this trip because he is a bit of an expert using this approach especially on the river Wye where barbel fear his name.

You see when the river passport office from the Wye and Rivers trust gets in-touch to update any interested parties that swim in the stretch and call it their home, before the list is read out of the names booked in on the stretch that day, there is always a fin or five up asking if Nic Bradley is one of them.

I’ve yet to catch a single barbel on the float but then I tend to fish for barbel locally where that one bite in 10 sessions is a good result, where ledgering and that bait and wait approach and often coma inducing method is the only way to angle for them. The Wye has fish in healthy numbers though not the lone stragglers I’m used to.

My trotting set-up consisted of a 5g Dave Harrell Mega Stick float with a 4g olivette sandwiched between two grippa stops. A size 10 Korum Grappler hook, a 5lb 7 fluorocarbon hook-link and the main line is 8lb (I think).

Before the session had started, I basically knew most of the drill where hemp and pellets are fed into a swim throughout the trotting period where a highly visible chunk of luncheon meat is suspended under the buoyant float and dragged along as close to the bottom as possible.

When I got bankside an hour after Nic at 6.15am what I didn’t expect was to arrive exactly the same time as Nic was playing a nice Barbel. It’s a heck of a walk with all the gear to the top of the stretch, where apart from negotiating heart attack hill you need to lug your gear over 2 styles, a rickety bridge and a gate too.

Nic has additional camera gear with a large tripod and another large tripod to support his bait waiter to lug around as well, cart horse springs to mind. For those that enjoy his videos, it’s not easy making videos like this for your entertainment, but I’ve witnessed it firsthand, his set-up is far from an iPhone on a phone mount, hence why his production is right up there with the best. 

Chalk and most definitely cheese. Anyway, to the fishing the Mordiford gauge was up at around 0.5m when we got there and a decent dumping of rain emanating from the Welsh mountains was heading our way, and it was literally starting to rise as we got there. 

To cut a long story short the river had risen to just shy of 1m when we left where the croy in one of the swims if it were to continue in the same vigour would have soon been underwater, you could almost see the river rise just staring at it.

That meant we had to make hay and get trotting in the best swim where it would be already dangerously teetering over my waders where after a go in the croy swim for a couple of chub I managed to catch my first barbel using Nic’s rod. Backwinding to good effect from a fight from a nice Wye barbel, that didn’t take long now did it.  

I returned to the croy for some more chub but then decided to head down to swim that despite the river now showing some decent colour and heading up, it looked a nice steady pace. Nic turned up for a natter when I had a nice chub in the net, because wow, the fish had really turned on to the feed on the rising river and extra oxygen I'd imagine. 

It was chub after chub after chub and when (Taller !! ) Nic returned to winkle out yet another barbel whilst wading out of the blue the float buried under and I’m in to an unmistakable barbel.

The first run really was quite ridiculous where it took me mid river and beyond where the only coarse of action was to try and keep up with the backwind which was turning at a rate of knots. The power was unbelievable really and I knew it would be a right mission to get it to the net.

I managed it though because after another 2 or 3 powerful runs eventually I had it under control and I was gaining on it. The new rod set-up justifying the purchase price, it was doing a sterling job of resisting the lunges where after 10 minutes or so I teased it into the landing net to a huge relief to myself because my arm felt like it was going to drop off.

So as planned I did manage to christen my rod with a Wye barbel and was so happy to catch it and much of that down to Nic whose tips I’ve picked up on and used to catch myself one of my own.

The pressure was off, so after resting and weighing it, (7lb 8 ounces) I rang up Nic who promptly came down to film it in its natural environment with a fantastic backdrop to boot. Such a great way of catching barbel and credit goes to Nic for showing me the ways and means.

It was a cracking session all-round with Nic and I deciding to leave earlier than planned as we had our quota. To be fair when the river had peaked the bites had slowed up however Nic had managed 3 barbel and circa 20 chub and I had 2 barbel and around the same amount of chub as well.

I did get the ledger rod out to rest my aching arm but in the end went back to trotting as that was the reason why I was there really. What a way to catch barbel and chub for that matter and it got me wanting more now because I enjoyed it so much in good company and great scenery I could only imagine what it would be like if the Wye was the only river you got to fish. 

Was Barford (known as Barbel alley) on the Warwickshire Avon anything like this in it's heyday for barbel and chub ? because that would be as close as I'd get I'd imagine locally, I only wish I had tried this tactic more when I was a member as maybe I'd have picked up more fish from the trottable swims.