River Wye - Damp socks and Damnification

Now somehow and I’m still not entirely sure how this happened  Ben turned sixteen over the weekend. One minute he’s eating crayons and posting Pokémon cards through the toaster, the next he’s wanting a Fat Hippo “Born Slippy” like a seasoned burger connoisseur and swiping ID-checked mocktails like he’s about to DJ at Ministry of Sound. Time, it seems, is no longer on our side.

Ben having left 'school' will now go to the Welcome Hills 'hub' which is for 'life skills' where he will be until he is 19. We've a few years to decide where he goes from there, answers on a postcard !!

So anyway what better way to celebrate his coming of age than with something greasy, followed by something loud and wildly overpriced? 

Cue the Fat Hippo in Birmingham for burgers dirtier than a Somerset tractor tyre, and then on to the F1 Arcade for the kind of simulation racing where the only thing more dangerous than the virtual crashes is the price of a pint.

Ben’s younger brother Sam, however, doesn’t quite share the same enthusiasm for airshows or faux-driving Grand Prix cars into a digital Monaco chicane. So while Sarah dutifully took Ben and a small gang of turbo-charged teenagers to Fairford Air Tattoo the following morning to ogle jet engines and fried dough, I’d booked Sam and I something a little more... tranquil.

Fishing on the River Wye. Man and boy. With rods, reels, and enough scalded pellets to open a small branch of Nash Tackle.

Now, Sam had been absolutely buzzing for this trip. He’d got his first pair of proper waders for his birthday, the kind that makes a lad feel part man, part frog. I’d barely got the car packed before he was in the driveway dressed like an amphibious knight, armed with a landing net and asking if we could camp “for at least a week.”

When we finally arrived, the Wye looked... well... thirsty. Desperately low and as gin-clear as the posh optics behind a Waitrose bar. The streamer weed, which had been playing hard to get in recent years, was back doing its leafy dance, and there, tucked just off a gravel bar, were the tell-tale flashes of flanking barbel – more barbless ballet than feeding frenzy, but encouraging all the same.

Our swim was marked with a forgotten pair of socks someone had clearly sacrificed to the river gods, then I did what all sensible river anglers should do: fed the swim and didn’t rush in like an over-eager labrador. A half-hour of soaking and some hopeful muttering to the river spirits later, I prepped for the Method approach – on the advice of Nic from Avon Angling, who’d been here two days prior and winked like a man who knew a secret.

Scalded pellet mix. 12mm halibut pellet on the hair. Standard stuff. Except what wasn’t standard was what happened fifteen minutes in. I noticed the line collecting a bit of weed, went to tweak it and then WHACK! The rod tip went full Shakespearean tragedy. A violent lurch, a screeching clutch, and suddenly I was connected to what can only be described as an aquatic freight train with fins.

Now this, my friends, was no chub.

Sam, to his credit, had the net ready and was pacing like an apprentice zookeeper watching his first lion get loose. The fish wasn’t happy. The line was grating. Streamer weed was wrapping around the line like a sullen teenager in a duvet. After some heart-stopping lunges and a final defiant burst, Sam did the honours and netted it like an absolute pro. What a lad.

At first glance, I guessed 7lb. Maybe 8. But once I hoisted her up and felt the weight thumping through my wrist like an angry metronome, I revised my estimate. Scales don’t lie. 9lb 11oz  a proper Wye bruiser and my personal best from the river.

After some resting and obligatory admiration, Sam released it with all the grace and seriousness of a junior fish priest. The barbel, perhaps sensing our awe, didn’t linger. She flicked once and surged away with purpose. Job done.

The rest of the day unfolded like a greatest hits album of classic Wye moments. We swapped between float and ledger tactics. The “gully swim” produced some chub (nothing big), taken on little cubes of luncheon meat trotted through a pacey glide that made the rod tip twitch with anticipation. Sam, despite being only 13, fished like a lad with gills. 

I suppose dragging him to rivers since he was 4 has paid off. He’s got the touch now  the soft flick of the float, the patient wait, the instinctive strike. I mostly just watched, passed him sandwiches, and felt a quiet swell of dad pride.

As the day wore on, clouds began to grumble in the distance like an old man realising he'd left the immersion heater on. We took the hint. Packed up. Began the long trudge back to the car, rods on shoulders, boots clagged in riverbank clay. 

We’d barely shut the doors when the heavens opened in a deluge of biblical proportions. Torrential rain lashed the windscreen with all the grace of a toddler wielding a watering can.

Perfect timing. Perfect day.

And so, after burgers, barbel, and big skies full of Red Arrows and thunderclouds, we returned home damp, satisfied, and carrying the faint but glorious stink of river fish and dirty waders. 

Roll on the next session.