Feedback & Reports

1 barbel and a few chub between three of us. Very hard and the river as low as I have seen it.

A nice fishery with the river a little low. However the fish were very hard to find and only a couple of smallish chub. Many canoeists were a real pain, swimming off the croys and a couple capsised in my swim.

Greeted with very low water conditions, and relatively bright skies. Fishing proved very difficult with only 3 barbel and 10 chub being caught.
Hopefully fishing will improve when there is a decent amount of water in the river. Nice to see that there are a few more swims marked, but would be better if flat fishing platforms could be introduced.

Another early Saturday start found K.B and myself on the road towards White House for a return trip hoping to find the river in better condition than a month previous. Arriving around 7.30am we were pleased to find that the river was up compared to are last visit and carrying some colour. Trying likely looking swims and giving them a couple of hours before moving on showed that the day was not going to be one of the best we have had on the river and when in the early afternoon the opposite bank was the venue for a well attended match this did result in the number of swims available to fish being reduced. By the end of the day I think the catch was down due to the angling pressure from the other bank. Sunday was another early start and with Middle Hill court the venue hopes were up for a better days fishing. Having read previous catch reports we fished the areas that had done well and indeed the fishing was much improved on the day before with both of us getting amongst some nice Barbel with the average weight up on White House. Over the weekend are tally for Barbel reached 40 fish to a top weight of 8lb 13oz.

The only concerning thing that I have to report is that nearly every Barbel and all of the couple of Chub that we caught had Argulus or the Common fish louse on them. I don't pretend to be a marine biologist but having checked on the enter-net I strongly belive that this is what they are. I don't believe there is much anyone can do to eradicate this crustacean but we took great care in removing every one from the fish we caught, I really do hope that this is not going to affect the fish in the amazing river.

Many thanks to the WUF. Top job done by all involved.

2nd time with the Wye & Usk, first time in March snow on ground and the river tidal, nothing whatsoever. On Friday 23 July had a 3lb Chub and 9lb barbel and mate of mine had a two barbel 4lb and another 9lb. Great fight with the bigger ones and lots of activity, warm, cloudy intervals, river high, used Halibut pellets. Really a great day in stunning surroundings.

The river looked perfect carrying plenty of colour but results didn't reflect this. 4 rod totals as follows:

Fri. 23/7 Backney - 3 barbel (best 7-4)
Sat. 24/7 Middle Hill - 4 barbel (best 7-10)
Sun. 25/7 Whitehouse - 9 barbel (best 7-5)

The barbel were interspersed with a few chub (best 4-8) but not in any significant numbers. All of us "rang the changes" with baits but all the barbel were caught on either pellet or meat.

It was extremely disappointing to find other anglers on all of the beats we had booked (bearing in mind all had a limit of 4 coarse rods)! We knew this was possible at Backney so this was no issue but another angler arrived to fish Middle Hill Court and there were 3 other anglers sharing Whitehouse with us. As the number of fishable swims is not particularly high on these beats, the presence of other anglers did restrict opportunities to rove up & down the beats and it certainly does nothing to alleviate clearly increasing angling pressure.

In coarse angling terms the cost of fishing these beats is relatively high but is acceptable when exclusivity is factored in. We definitely left feeling a little cheated and it would be nice to have some explanation of the situation!

** WUF Note **

We were sorry to hear the enjoyment of this angling trip was affected by extra anglers on the water. While we endeavour to ensure a degree of exclusivity, the beats do sometimes experience poaching activity (as do all fisheries). Having investigated this report, we believe that the other White House and Middle Hill Court anglers were fishing without permission. Should anyone come across what they believe to be poaching on a Passport water, we request they contact the Foundation as soon as possible, leaving a message if out of office hours. Although difficult at weekends, we can sometimes have the owner, a bailiff or one of our habitat team members attend the scene.

Despite a river with a little colour, being overcast and drizzley we only managed to catch 5 chub between 4 of us.
Conditions looked ideal but the fishing very hard. Dont really understand why we didn't catch!

Fished the lower end and had 5 chub to 5lb, 3 on freelined pellet. The river was carrying a lot of weed so conditions slightly tricky. The fish were in excellent condition and fought extremely well. Very impressed.

My first ever trip to Whitehouse, I was very impressed with the ease of access and strimmed/marked swims. The river was very low and the weather very hot, as a result the fishing was far from easy. I did manage to extract one Barbel of about 7.5lb from under an overhanging tree in the morning, but had to settle for a dozen or so small Chub during the rest of the day.

All fish were caught on small Halibut pellets. Despite the fairly hard fishing, I had a great day in beautiful surroundings.

Arrived around 10am to find all the lower sections heavily populated with anglers on the opposite bank which left me with few options but to head upstream - a lot of new pegs have been strimmed and marked since I was last there, which made things a bit easier. I fished 3 swims just over an hour each for 5 Chub in the 2 to 4 lb bracket. Sadly I had to leave after 4 hours and never made it back in the evening. The river was very low and clear at the bottom and bright sunlight made this usually productive stretch tough going.