Feedback & Reports

6 Barbel all in evening session. Spent 2 hours in the morning trotting with the pin but should have known better as normal summer levels starting to rise and colour tinge getting in and no bites from anything. Adjourned for lunch and siesta.
I needed the recharge as the evening was eventful. A 7lbs 11oz barbel fought so long and hard (amazing power-to-weight ratio of 7lb'ers generally) with barbel rod bent full 180 degree arc under a bush right in the flow, it widened the gape on a strong size 8. I used a big bait. Another huge and overlong effort required with what I believed to be a VERY big fish on had me in bits as I had, unnoticed from the 7lbs 11oz battle, frayed line grinding in the rings. It was a sack-of-potatoes in fast flow and no wonder, 9lb7oz hooked in the belly. Barbless size 8 so no significant damage except to my nerves. Then an 8lbs 5oz bent off the landing net head though fortunatley I could get down to water level and use the net. Had a spare in the vehicle.
In between all this were 3 5-6lb'ers.
It was hard work!

Poured with rain from early morning until about 3pm. Almost didn't bother to make the journey. Arrived about 12.30pm and managed to climb down bank to swim to be greeted by the river pushing through and chocolate in colour for the first third of the way across.
Tried fishing beyond this to no avail then decided to fish close in, which produced barbel about 6lbs in the first 5 minutes in the pouring rain. Ten minutes later second bite and fish took off like a train eventually brought to the net about five minutes later. Opening the net looked like a double so unhooked it and took quick picture with my forceps beside the fish to give me some idea of scale of fish. As it was pouring with rain at the time I quickly weighed fish and was disappointed to see it go to 6lbs 12oz on scales, then returned fish. It was then when I was ready to start fishing again I noticed the scales were set on kgs, so it was 13lbs plus! Caught 3 more barbel to 7lb+ all on halibut pellets. Later scaling of photo showed fish to be at least 32" long.

6 barbel to 7lb 8oz and a 4lb+ chub. Nice warm evening promised more; what's to be dissappointed with in this lovely setting?
Should have got there earlier and had fun with trotting gear in an ideal swim in the middle of the beat.

First time on this beat. I can't say I was impressed as the access to swims was very poor. If the ground was wet it would have been necessary to drop in on sky hooks! There were two which you could access but the levels were quite low and there was a great deal of weed which ended up with tackle losses and only a few fish. 1 Barbel, 1 Chub and strangely 1 eel on a huge lump of luncheon meat.

This was our 1st visit to this stunningly beautiful beat and we arrived early in perfect conditions,overcast and humid. We walked the beatand decided we would fish the lower end in the morning then after lunch fish the upper/mid sections. During the morning we caught 8 barbel but the evening session proved to be most productive and we both caught steadily up to 21:00 with barbel in excess of 8lbs. All the fish came to pellet feeder with pellets,sweetcorn and boilies as hookbaits.
Thanks WUF for a great day in beautiful suroundings, we will return.

We had a very good day fishing at How Caple Court and between the 2 of us we managed to catch 21 Barbel upto 8lbs 4oz and 17 Chub but only upto 3lbs 8oz. Most of the fish were caught by trotting lunchon meat, we also ledgered using halibut pellets. All the fish seemed in very good health but we noticed that 3 of the Barbel had the lower tails missing. Between 06.45am - 09.00am 5 Cormorants were seen flying up stream.

A lovely day on the river. First time on a new stretch which is a brilliant stretch of river. Both rods caught barbel and chub and we will deinately be back for another session. Thanks WUF!

Very nice stretch of river with plenty of well established swims, although some of them are tricky to access. Unfortunately the fishing was quite slow for most of the day, but did pick up in the last hour or so of light. In the end, I managed 6 Barbel with the biggest at 7lb 10oz and a small Chub of around a pound after trying several different swims.
I did come across one man who was fishing without a ticket, but he did apologise and leave when he realised it was a private stretch (I also pointed him towards the WUF website). Maybe putting some signs up at the entrances would help prevent this in the future?
Thanks again WUF for a great day out :)

Arrived 11.30am and fished till 7.00pm. Between the two rods caught 3 Barbel between 5 and 8lbs and a couple of Chub around 2 pounds. Most fish taken on halibut pellets, lost a couple of fish at the net. Will be back soon.

Arrived early morning. Sun shining. As this was my first visit I checked out length of beat and chose to fish accessible swim about midway in "near bank gulley". Quiet but improved midday. Caught 4 nice chubb and 1 barbel.
Wonderful location in beautiful countryside. Parking in wet conditions would be restricted. Another very enjoyable day. Thank you W.U.F.