The River Wey is a beautiful river with rabbits and pheasants running over the meadows. It’s a peaceful river that holds a good amount of large dace, big chub and barbel, pike, roach, trout and grayling.

Whilst filming for Crabtree series 2, I meet some amazing people. One of which was Mike Holcombe of Godalming Angling Society. There is a number of lakes there and GAS is well know now for its large pure Crucians and Tench. My dad and I joined the club and we set ourselves some targets. At the top of the list was to catch a big fish on the Wey. This could be a big dace and graying or a double figure barbel.

The evening before we set off my dad and I sorted out what we would need for the day on the river. We packed: halibut ground bait and pellets, Pallatrax squabs, 2 pints of maggots each, and luncheon meat. We set our alarms at 5.30am and we were ready for whatever the river had to throw at us.

When we arrived and we looked into the muddy high water we knew from then it was going to be a struggle and it would be big smelly baits. The first swims where in a large deep bend, so I chucked a handful of small halibut pellets and a few larger one into the this swim under a tree hoping when I come back the fish would have found the bait and start to feed.

I moved around trotting touch ledgering but no fish. Mike Holcombe came to see us and he said we were doing the right thing with big smelly baits but no fish. When we were walking back I remembered I had pre-baited this spot on a bend under some overhanging trees. I put on a large halibut pellet, 3 ssg shot up the line to sink and keep on the bottom and touched ledgered.

Tug, tug, tug and I struck! The fish picked up the bait and swam downstream in this strong current around the corner, a huge splash on the surface and then – gone.

I was so gutted – I had fished all day, nothing, and then out of the blue came alone this fish. I think it was a chub as it headed straight for the snags under the trees.

I didn’t give up though as 2 weeks later I returned and fished about 1 mile of the river. The water level has dropped, making it much clearer and when we arrived we walked downstream to a lovely pool with mini rapids above and a sharp bend after –  perfect for chub and barbel. I trotted with maggots for 45mins and then cast to some slack on the far side but no fish. I was gutted again!

Once more I didn’t catch anything that day even though the condition’s looked perfect. There are huge fish there though and I will be back to fish in the summer for those fish!