2nd visit to Redmire

The day of reckoning was upon me, my second trip to Redmire, this one being a summer trip, although the weather had something different to say about that. The night before I was due to set off Hereford, and indeed most of the country, had the first frost of the year. Not a particularly heavy frost but a frost none the less and a long time since the last one.
The journey was exiting, in fact, the whole getting ready thing including preparing bait and tackle and even loading the car, checking and double checking the checklists and saying farewell to my loved ones. “I shall return in 5 days time, pray that the gods of Redmire are kind to me!” I said as I left the house.

Once I got over the Severn Bridge the scenery changed, it always does. There is something special that I love about the Welsh countryside, rolling hills, valleys, old bridges, it has everything. I got to the pub at a little before 11am and was already supping a shandy when Rich entered. We introduced ourselves and sat to talk of the prospects for the week. Whilst chatting we thought it a good idea to order a meal from the bar so that we did, polished off our meals and set forth to the pool.

Kennet Days

A special couple of day’s I’d been longing for were finally here. I drove to Newbury, around 50 minutes and waited in the pub for Martin James, angling legend, BBC radio and TV presenter, author, world famous angler, I was actually going to fish with him!!!

At around 4pm Martin entered with his very close friend and accomplished Barbel angler David Foster. With Martin on standby doing pictures for a magazine feature, David was to be my guide for the trip and the plan was to help me catch my first river Barbel. As soon as we all sat down and looked through the menu, Martin and I were at it talking about fishing’s past, Dick Walker, Jack Hilton and all manner of other Carping history. We hit the ground running and could see straight away that this was going to be a session of adventure and lots of chit chat. We had a meal and left at 6pm for the river.