Feedback & Reports

The river Wye has been running high,coloured, full of rubbish (leaves etc) and fast flowing all week. Almost unfishable on every day except for fishing in the slacks.
This report covers all week.
- Sat 14th. Fishing the Warren. (op Sheephouse) F had 1 Barbel 10lb 12oz. on Spam. T blanked.
- Sunday 15th. The Warren. Both blanked. (tried maggots, casters, spam-, pellets (all sorts) and boilies (all sorts) bread sweetcorn and just about everything else.
- Monday 16th. Lower Llangoed. Fred lots of Dace/small Chub and o/s Brown Trout. feeder fishing maggots.
Terry. Plenty of Grayling and o/s Brown Trout trotting maggots. Best day of the week as it turned out.
- Tuesday. 17th. The Warren (op Sheephouse). F had Dace on maggots and 1 Pike 22lb on float/ledgered Dead Dace. T had 1 Barbel 7lb 14oz. on pellets.
- Wednesday 18th, Ty Newydd. Wash off unfishable.
- Thursday 19th, The Warren (op Sheephouse). F had 1 Chub on pellets, 3lb 2oz and 1 Pike 18lb 14oz on float/ledgered dead Dace. T had 1 Chub 3lb 7oz on pellet.
Thanks to all at WUF for all your help and advice as always.
Personal comments from T and myself to those who report that they have had really hard days fishing when they have only caught 7 or 8 Barbel and a dozen Chub or so. Get real, that is a great days fishing NOT a hard one. You should remember it as a great days fishing when you next have a blank session which WILL happen at some time, when the river is in flood and very dirty like it has been for us all week. This is HARD fishing, but very enjoyable none the less, and we travel 250 miles just to get to fish the Wye.

River up and muddy, island covered AGAIN!. Kept 4 large 4 to 5 in brown slugs with orange underside whilst gardening and at dusk tried them for chub, freelined on size 8 hook to 16ft trotting rod and centrepin. Took 1 chub around 4lb from bottom of steps at Wyebank entry and a slightly larger one from stream entry. In stream below footbridge hooked a small chub which immediatly was took on the surface by a large pike well into double figures that sheared my line after a few seconds. An interesting half hour drowning slugs!

What a difference a month makes! Having found a distinctly friendly and welcoming river on an overcast but pleasant day in September whilst on holiday when I fished this beat for the first time, I persuaded a mate to come with me on another visit to barbel utopia... only this time, the river was high and charging, we had frost overnight followed by bright sunshine all morning and the reception from the river was hardly open arms... In the circumstances (particularly having read through numerous catch reports here) I suspected that we might have to wait for the late afternoon for a feeding spell, and so it proved to be. Fishing from 10am, neither of us had so much as a twitch to get excited about. Then at about 4.40pm, JC hooked and lost a barbel in the swim three down from the powerlines. Next cast on the same spot, a barbel of 6lb8oz was landed. This persuaded NPH to move from swim 2 to swim 4. However, what neither of us was prepared for was that the feeding "frenzy" would only last 20 minutes, as after 5.00pm no more bites materialised. Worth a 170 mile round trip? I would say "yes" - as the sight of a leaping salmon (twice!) and a peregrine falcon are things we don't generally get treated to on the thames. We will be back. Thanks to all at WUF, the access here is fine but next time I might hhave a more realistic evaluation of how mmuch bait I really need - as climbing the steps on the way back to the car with unopened bags of groundbait and pellets is demoralising!

A short day, before heading home. Water dropping. Two barbel, one chub and some dace. River felt full of life once more.

Arrived to find the river up four feet in a couple of days, but the water did not seem too cold for a result. 2 average size barbel taken on pellets around mid-afternoon, and a couple of missed half chances made for an interesting day.

Arrived midday. River was up and coloured (but not as high as the section by Ross) and we felt confident of a few barbel during the afternoon, early evening.

Unfortunately our confidence was misplaced and in spite of baiting and fishing a couple of areas all we had to show for our efforts was just one chub! First ever barbel "blank" on the Wye!

River coloured, and medium paced, G. caught 7 Barbel,
P. caught diddlesquat.

Biggest Barbel 7.5lbs down to 4lbs, all clean fish, no otter or cormerant marks.

Bait consisted of Halibut pellets, boilies, sausage
A beautiful setting, extremly tranquile, will be back.

P. 1 x Barbel 6.5lbs plus lots of small dace.
G. Diddlesquat.
Bait; bronze maggots, pellets, boilies.

Blank, no fish. Still, stunning setting.

Four of us went on the 13 Oct. The river was impossible to fish and that resulted in only one barbel came out in 8 hours.