Feedback & Reports

My first trip to courtfeild, what a fantastic day I had. I looked for a swim with a bit of comfort to be honest after sitting in the mud and skating around on it all afternoon the day before. The first 5 casts produced 1 chub, 3 barbel and 1 lost. What a start. By 12 noon I had caught 10 barbel 5 chub. This can't continue i thought? By 3.45pm I was on 16 barbel, 6 chub, then it slowed down catching 1 more before I went at 8.45pm. The final score was 17 barbel to 8lbs and 6 chub to 5lbs 3oz, with a few lost to hook pulls snags etc ,all on pellet and boilie and open end feeder. Great to be able to speak to someone like Don who literally knows the river inside out,enjoyed the chat. Last thing I even managed to catch a barbel within seconds of a canoe going over the top of my bait with one of the chaps in the canoe playing a banjo. You never quite know whats going to happen with a days fishing on the wye!

Arrived at lunchtime and was very happy find Don near the entrance ready to point us in the right direction and give us some helpful tips. A surprisingly warm, partly sunny day and the river only rose 6 inches. 1 rod had 4 barbel (all 4-6lb) and 4 chub up to 4lb from the swim at the end of the path from Severn Trent parking bay. Other rod had 6 barbel from the swim at the end of the beat, 2 up from rod 1. All over 6lb including 2 at 7lb 10oz - one of which happened to be a first ever barbel for the angler. All caught with Ellipse pellet haired, 3-4oz feeders loaded with groundbait/hemp/pellet mix. A cracking day.

Arrived to find the river was only up about 1 metre. I settled in a swim in the meadow. I had to move 3 times to find the feeding barbel. I even had to tinker with the length of the rigs and pellet size. It was supposed to be dry, however we had heavy rain showers during the afternoon. This is sure to start the cycle of high water again. I think the barbel fed well when the river was up on the previous weekend and gourged themselves. The swims are getting quite muddy now and care needs to be taken. It will be great when the wooded area is fishable.
The end result was 4 beautiful 8lb barbel like pea's in a pod. I lost 3 more to hook pulls (very rare for this to happen. I had 3 chub between 2-3lb. The barbel were caught after lunch.

River up 3.5ft and holding. Due to the water level only Leggs Meadow was fishable (unless you wanted to spend the day fishing by the road in the town). This has obviously been the case for most of the season as the swims were very heavily worn. It reminded us a bit of the Kennet!

We only had 2 barbel between the three of us (6lb 10oz and 7lb 12oz), both on feeder fished halibut pellet. We also had 6 chub to 5lb and a 1lb eel!

Plenty of canoe traffic as well, a lot of whom clearly weren't interested in the peace and tranquillity of the surroundings!

The best entertainment came from the mandarin ducklings that seemed quite happy to eat out of my hand!

My father and I enjoyed two excellent days fishing. The river was very high and highly coloured, in fact it initially looked so flooded we had almost decided to abandon. After talking with a very helpful Allyson we gave things a go early the following morning and had some success. The first day was overshadowed by the next day, my father caught 5 barbel, the biggest being 8lb 10oz and 7 chub about 3-4lb. I caught 4 barbel and 4 chub being similiar sizes. In total we caught 28 healthy, hard fighting fish over the two days, a very good result and not what we really expected.
I hope I have similiar success when I return sometime soon.

Water well up and coloured but fishable under your feet.
Had about 7 or 8 Barbel all on pellet with swimfeeder tactics. Brilliant day but could do with more swim choice. There are only about 4/5 swims in the meadow.

Fished one of the last swims in the meadow. Arrived late and didnt start until 9.30am. Water was up around 2m but dropped steady during the day. Fished very close-in due to flow. finished-up with 6 Barbel to 9.5lb. None of the fish smaller than 8lbs. All fought like demonds in the fast water, great day and will return when levels drop a bit.

Arrived 10.30am after long drive down and then walked the length. As I was the 4th rod to arrive I had to settle into a swim near the top of Legg Meadow which offered a little calmer water. River very high and chocolate brown but at least falling. Still had to fish close to the bank. After a few bait droppers the first put in of the day produced a fish of 9lbs 7ozs, my 4th produced a better fish of 9lbs 10ozs. What a day I am in for I thought but even though I stayed to dusk I could only add 2 more fish of 8lbs 12ozs and 9lbs 11ozs. I thought all 4 were doubles and in the water levels took some landing. Meat, pellet x 2 and Richard T bollie accounted for the fish. What an average size, if not the quantity, this stretch seems capable of. Thank you CM for landing the 1st 2 and taking some great pics.

Fished Courtfield all day on 7th and morning of 8th. When we arrived river very coloured and pushing through with a constant amount of debris. A lot of river side trees must have been uprooted! The river rose about 6ft during the day, by mid afternoon on saturday most of the lenght was hardly fishable. Our party of two spent both days in swims one and two and fished under the rod tips, 5oz stuggling to hold. It didnt stop the fish from feeding and we managed 31 barbel between us. 17 on saturday and 14 Sunday morning. This included my first Wye double at 10lb 4oz, 3 over 9 lbs and a number of big 8lb plus fish.
This was our first trip to Courtfield, access is easy, under normal conditions plenty of fishable swims and the fish are certainly bigger than what we have seen elsewhere on the Wye. I needed every oz of the 12lb line i was using to move the fish off the bottom in the flow.
Stayed at the Anchor Inn in the village, which i would recommend, good food and accomodating, we will be back. Well done to those we met who also caught in some very difficult conditions.

8 barbel to 8lb 10oz. Averaged 6-7 lbs. River very muddy but thoroughly enjoyed it and will be back.