STRIKING GOLD WHERE FRESH MEETS SALT
At the junction of the waters the tidal River Wye holds a host of surprises
HE sea’s pull on every T river is all-powerful, drawing water from the source to fuel its magnitude.
It also has the muscle to reach far inland, pushing back the freshwater as the tides rush in. These areas are dynamic places, caught between river and estuary where, quite literally, anything can be found – a flatfish rubs shoulders with a roach, the silver livery of which is immaculate thanks to the healing properties of salt.
Here, pike grow large on such a diverse and bountiful diet and the flounders aren’t spared their attentions – even though their mottled backs blend perfectly into the gravel bottom to conceal them from the predators’ view.
When the moon is large enough the water darkens with shoals of thin-lipped mullet, a bizarre fish with seemingly no rhyme nor reason to its feeding patterns.
Occasionally mullet will chase a small spinner, but generally they prefer to pick through weed and bottom sediment.
Many a time, to the untrained eye, they’re mistaken for chub, and I’ve heard of anglers wasting hours pursuing seven-pounders of completely the wrong species!
PASSING THROUGH
The world where salt meets fresh has its nomads just passing through at certain times of
the year. None is mightier than the Atlantic salmon which, like the eel, can change its internal workings back and forth to live a life from surf to source.
The ‘King of Fishes’ is quite possibly the biggest creature with fins to move along the system, and in spring it is prized by anglers who hope to intercept one or more of these silver tourists.
As with the snobbery sometimes found among big-carp aficionados, the salmon fraternity falls prey to a misguided sense of superiority. It goes something like this – anybody who doesn’t cast a fly isn’t a real angler.
Such a blinkered approach means that many rods miss out on a bagful of enjoyment.
Alongside the salmon comes the sea lamprey, with a face only a mother could love! These scaleless parasitic horrors have more right to be here than we humans do, because they were in existence well before dinosaurs roamed the earth and are the oldest living vertebrates. They arrive in the river to spawn, laying and fertilising thousands of eggs before their life cycle comes full circle and they die.
Other May visitors are the herring-like allis and twaite shad, now so rare that fishing for them is banned. Only accidental captures can be seen and admired.
HARD TO BELIEVE
I was never going to refuse an invitation from my friend George Woodward to fish where the Wye and the Bristol Channel vie for supremacy.
This challenge didn’t involve any of the fish already mentioned, but
a species that has thrived in the Wye since its illegal introduction decades ago – barbel!
Not everyone welcomes these fish, and exactly how far downriver they have penetrated is a matter for debate.
George told me that a 16lb monster had been banked, something I found hard to believe, but even if the captor had misread the scales they could hardly get the identity of such a distinctive fish wrong.
Maybe there really are Goliaths here of river record size? Everhopeful of finding out, I met up with George on a bright and
“Salmon anglers welcome a glint of silver, but we’d struck gold, with barbel everywhere”
sunny morning. Coffee and cake seemed a civilised way to start our adventure before I fed a few handfuls of Ellipse pellets bound in Sticky Active Mix. Despite the strong current, these reached the bottom together.
After the long summer drought the water was gin-clear, so I opted for a near-invisible fluorocarbon mainline and a 15lb E-S-P Soft Ghost hooklength.
The stiff nature of the line suggested the need for a separate braided hair around the size 8 Gripper hook, attached via a Palomar knot to the fluoro. This way the rig would lie flush to the river bed, rather than stand proud of it. On the hair were a couple of pellets with a large PVA mesh bag of freebies nicked on every cast.
Feeling the lead fall through the water column, I estimated a depth of 6ft where the tackle landed in a pool just upstream of a large rock.
With the trap set, we waited for a sign on the rod-tip. That didn’t come, but downstream a flash of bronze caught the corner of my eye, then another, and another.
Salmon anglers welcome a glint of silver, but we had struck gold, and there were barbel everywhere. A bite now felt like a formality, but it still made us both jump when it finally came.
I was so pleased to be catching barbel here, and while the hopedfor monster never came along, who really knows what is possible in tidal waters such as this?
The other question is, how close to the sea can barbel be? Would it be possible to catch one in the shadow of Tintern Abbey? It would be fun to find out...