Feedback & Reports

River in good condition, and two salmon jumping on beat 4, but not to our flies.

A Cock of 9.5 pounds fished on fly( Willie Gun) on the Withey pool.
I saw a Cormorant.

08/10 on the Rectory beat. Upper part is not accessible and has to many brambles. We were very disappointed about this.

WUF Note. The named salmon pools are all fishable on the Rectory. The section from Bridge pool to Ty-Mawr does not hold salmon and no effort is made to make it accessible

1 Salmon

3 Anglers fished beats 4 & 5, caught 6 small chub on waggler and pellet along with 2 Barbel, 7-15 & 9-12 feeder & pellet. Will return again.

2 Barbel, 6 Chub

Very strong coloured cock fish, 15lb, netted at 16:05 on no.3 beat at Whitney Court on a size 10 double Monro Killer. He had the line and 90 per cent of my backing out on three runs which was a little stressful.

1 Salmon

We became just two anglers very late in the planning of this trip. Started the first morning looking at beats 4-6. Spent a good couple of hours walking the starch having not seen it before. With very low water levels, choice of swims was not fantastic considering the size of the section. We chose poorly and fished in the deeper pools of beat 4 for the first few hours and moved onto fish in the afternoon in beat 5 in faster shallower water. Whist producing fish it also proved quite snaggy. Fished the same beat the following morning but waited until lunchtime for a bite. Left for the last few hours on bet two upstream from the Boat Inn pub but on the other bank. Ended bite less. Conditions far from ideal, very low, slow and very bright did not help with location. 5 barbel landed, sadly similar numbers lost.

5 Barbel

I located the fastest section of flow I could find on beat 4 and with the aid of a dog spike and rope gained access to fish it. After two hours without a bite I opted to wade across the shallows to the deep run opposite and using luncheon meat instead of pellets I immediately caught a chub. At last, the essence of Wye fishing, wading the river close up and personal to the quarry using balanced tackle. Some four hours of excellent sport completely justified the cost and effort of driving from London. Four hard fighting chub, lost fish and missed bites all components of a memorable session. I then returned to trying to tempt the barbel in a section of deep water for four hours without reward.
Next trip I will take more care to investigate river conditions to optimize the possibility of catching barbel but the chub are a pretty good consolation.

4 Chub

This is a nice piece of river with easy access to alot of it. Walking is easy also. Usual methods to catch barbel once we found them, shame the bailiff never returned my call to him but all in all I would return here even though the river is very low. There's still an awful lot of water to go at.

5 Barbel, 1 Chub

The river was very low with almost no flow at all. This made it difficult to spot areas of possible barbel presence. Fished pellets in the deep water at Loxters pool for six hours to no avail. Investigated beat 2 right bank for the following day. The adjoining A438 made this stretch quite noisy, not the Wye experience I was seeking. Moved on to check out beats 3 and 4 left bank. More secluded with better river access and more parking than previous beats so resolved to fish there the next day.

A fantastic area to fish, you couldn't wish for more except a bit more water in the river. 1 lost barbel and some chub on a mixture of float and feeder fishing. Will definitely return when the levels are up a bit.

6 Chub

Nice day to be on a lovely stretch of the river. Spent all day trotting maggot, bread and meat resulting in 5 reasonable chub and hundreds of small dace and chublets.

5 Chub