Feedback & Reports

Another opening day disappointment. Unfortunately the river was not in good condition following the rain storms in Wales over the last couple of days. River was very brown and once fishing we also discovered there was a lot of debris coming down the river making presentation hard. The river was also rising through the day. We reckon it rose around a foot through the course of the day. We tried 4 swims starting at the top end in the wyebank run ending up in the bottom pool. Unfortunately the bottom pool where we really wanted to concentrate our efforts was the hardest to fish. The water was fast down there and coupled with the debris coming down, it was impossible to present a bait correctly even in the inside crease. We also lost several leads/feeders to snags. We ended up going back to top end and spent a couple of hours trotting then the last couple of hours back on the lead/feeder.
Alas the pair of us never had a bite all day let alone a fish. We reckon we fished it as best as we could with varying methods and baits.
On the upside I would like to thank Don, the owner for his help both via email and at the fishery this morning. His advice was highly appreciated and he is a really nice guy to talk to. Although today I don't think any amount of advice would have reaped reward given the river condition. Roll on next week for our next session and the hope of a better condition river.

5 Trout, 9 Chub

The river was fining down from it's recent high levels but very cold. Fished close to the car park trotting maggot along a crease. Looked perfect and low and behold I managed to hook and lose three good fish after about an hour. I should have moved then but felt there were fish in front of me. Unfortunately after fishing hard all day I only managed three chub to about 3 lbs. Still worth the journey for such a beautiful river but next time I will be more mobile.

3 Chub

Sunny day, medium low river, pellet feeder

3 Chub

Having checked environment agency river levels which stated normal range about 1.5m average depth I was more than shocked to find a raging brown torrent all the way from Symonds Yat to Monmouth, I had expected some extra water due to rain earlier in week but not this level.
I did manage to hold bottom with a 5oz feeder in the slacker water but due to the turbulence difficult to identify any potential bites (if there were any).
The strong icy wind got the better of this fair weather angler and I packed up after a couple of hours with no return.

Wyebank is a glorious beat and it is the first time we have fished this stretch with the river very coloured and rising rapidly. The usual canoe traffic was replaced by high speed logs zooming past all day and the floating debris did not make matters easy.
Our lack of experience combined with the conditions resulted in us not doing very well...A powerful Barbel was lost in the strong current and only a small Dace was landed on a pleasant mild day.
Thanks to the WUF and we will return along with the Kingfishers when the river is lower.

1 Other

River was in good condition slightly up after previous days rain. Overcast conditions seemed ideal but it fished very hard, couldnt get a bite on any pellets or boilies so tried maggots and had a barbel straight away. Had 2 Chub after this on maggots then nothing till light started to go then had 2 more barbel and lost 2 barbel so not a bad day at the end. Beautiful place to fish, the scenery at this time of year is stunning, love this river.

3 Barbel, 2 Chub

Very tough conditions with low clear water level and weed wiping out the rod/rig all day long. Fished from first light and stuck at it and as the many bats came out at dusk (some bumping into my line to give false bites), just as I was going to pack up my perseverance paid off and I had my first barbel at 6lb. Had a few beers to celebrate :-)

1 Barbel

2 Barbel 8lb and 3lb. Don was very helpful.

2 Barbel

Fished a morning session before driving home but no fish this time. River was very low and clear.