THIS year’s Wye Fest will live long in the memory of Britain’s match anglers, with some hailing it as one of the best river festivals of all time.
Fished over three days, this year’s event set new standards for what is undeniably the UK’s greatest silverfish river, producing 100lb of bags of roach, huge nets of barbel, big perch and chub, and an average of over 40lb a man.
Some of the UK’s finest matchmen battled it out, with Welsh wizard Lee Edwards taking top spot, yet arguably the catch of the festival was taken by Wye expert Hadrian Whittle, who landed 101lb of roach to 2lb, plus a few big chub, all on the stickfloat.
“This year the fishing was simply out of this world,” he told us. “Nobody knows exactly why it was so good, but there have been so many fish in the river that’ve seemed so easy to catch.”
It was on the first day of competition that Hadrian put together the catch he describes as a ‘highlight of his whole angling career’.
“Fishing a 9 x No6 stick float, I fed a gallon of maggot and six pints of hemp on two lines, one out in front, the other on the inside down the peg, giving me two chances of a fish every run down,” he added. “To be honest, I’m amazed there weren’t bigger weights! As it gets colder and the fish shoal up tighter, I’m sure we’ll see catches regularly smashing the 100lb mark.”
