Since June 16th Team Bankside member Andy howes has been targeting the Wye barbel with some success. In his own words this is how he's been getting on so far.

June the 16th gave us a misty, murky morning with a heavy dew on the ground. A mile or so walk and plenty of nettle bashing later we were soaked but happy, and soon we'd created a couple of swims and were fishing. It didn't take long for the rod tip to start flying round, and the sight of a River Wye barbel in the net was a very welcome one after three months off! The only slight blot on the day for me was the loss of what felt like a very good fish to a hookpull in the streamer weed, but then they always feel big when you lose 'em.......!

A couple of days later I took a friend on his first trip to the Wye. Usually a pike and sea angler, he'd never caught a barbel, but that was about to change. We settled on a shallow swim first thing in one of the prettiest swims you could ever want to fish, and on his second cast he caught his first barbel, a 6lb scrapper. I don't know who was happier, me or him, as I was praying we wouldn't blank. Another splasher was in the net shortly afterwards but for the next hour or so the tips remained motionless, and i decided a change of swim was in order.

We battled our way through the undergrowth into a spot with some deeper water, and soon we were picking up fish again. The next few hours brought us no less than 19 more barbel as well as some good chub. It was frantic fishing and total chaos at times on one of the most enjoyable days fishing i can remember. Not huge barbel by any means but loads of fun. For the record, Nick beat me 11 barbel to 10 and managed the biggest of the day at 8lb 4oz, and he had the upstream rod too. I'm not taking him again.

All our fish came to groundbait feeders using Bankside's Oysta Crunch laced with hemp and Sucka pellets, with the new improved Team Barbel Boilie and paste as the hookbait.