Feedback & Reports

Another beautiful day on the Wye. Caught 9 barbel to 9-4 and 5 chub between three of us. Heavy heavy canoe traffic until 5.00pm. Chub caught throughout the day with the barbel showing later in the session. All caught on boilies and pellets. Plenty of sewin and a couple of salmon jumping!

Fished the lower end of the beat and whilst the going was still tough we managed 8 barbel & a few small chub to 3 rods with the 4th rod (me!) blanking.

Not for the first time on this beat we were joined by a further 2 anglers later in the day. We had no major problem with this as we were established in the areas we wanted to fish and the 2 anglers didn't particularly interfere with our fishing. However, if we'd arrived at the beat to find the 2 angers already fishing this would have restricted our choices and potentially could have been a problem.

I have raised this matter previously relating to this beat and there is a definite principle issue here. The beat write up clearly states "...there should be no more than 4 rods at any one time" and we had booked those 4 rods!

To be fair to the anglers booking this beat there needs to be some clarity please. Either a party of 4 should be guaranteed exclusivity or it should be clearly stated that this cannot be guaranteed, anglers can then make an informed decision as to whether or not the beat is right for them.

From our perspective if exclusivity could not be guaranteed for 4 anglers we would have to think very carefully before booking due to the restricted number of sensibly accessible swims in the more productive areas.

WUF NOTE - we have now updated the web page and beat documents.

A handful of chub and a brace of barbel. Struggled to find barbel willing to come out to play in the low clear conditions. One out of the blue mid afternoon but otherwise no sense of barbel activity until sunset. I suspect the other angler fishing the "hot" swim fared rather better. He did kindly invite me to fish close by, but I thought the shoal in that swim gets enough of a pasting as it is, and tried a few other swims which had produced for me in the past. Always a pleasure to be out on the river in such glorious surroundings.

First time on this beat. Three of us fished together; two experienced Wye barbel anglers and an eel enthusiast. The upper section in the wood was very hard work - both getting there and the fishing. Just two small chub on the float for one of my friends. By late afternoon we’d all settled into the slightly deeper water in the bottom field occupied by the enormous bull! The eel expert showed his prowess taking one of about a pound on his first cast using pellet. He followed that up by taking a smallish barbel and then all three of us struggled for bites of any sort. Two of us packed up at about 9 pm leaving the eel man to have a final cast. In the event he actually had four casts in the next thirty minutes taking three barbel and a decent chub! That’s fishing for you - never predictable. We all agreed this is a stretch that will probably fish best when the river is carrying a bit of extra water.

Thanks as always to the WUF.

Fished 2 days, 5 Barbel, 4 Chub.

Moved about a bit to find the fish, between 2 rods 4 chuib and 3 barbel, quite a few bites but not connecting, enjoyable day.

I fished a couple of swims in the Meadow and caught 2 barbel, best 8:10, on pellets - rather slow. The recent rain in Dorset probably didn't reach Hereford as the river was still very low and clear. Caught my fish during the canoe frenzy which started just after 9am with last stragglers passing at 8:45pm(!). Saw perhaps a dozen salmon on the stretch, a couple of which I'd estimate at over 20lb.
All round a very enjoyable day.

River was very low, with quite a lot of weed coming through which made fishing difficult. Fished a number of swims from about 11am - 9pm, with a couple of good barbel (both over 8lb) coming in the final hour to pellet. Very nice beat, will hopefully be back when conditions are more favourable.

Dire! Fished extensively & hard along the entire top section of the beat without a bite to any of us!

At last managed to get on this beat! River low and lots of floating weed coming downstream. We plumbed to fish the bottom end of the beat as the flow was faster, both rods using pellets. Jack kicked off with his first barbel after about 3/4 hour and continued to take a further 5 up to lunch time. I was in a perfect looking glide and managed to blank! My fault, not the river's. I must learn to sit on my hands for longer and let the rod pull round! We fished the middle slower sections 1-4.30pm with no takes so it was back downstream and oncve again Jack was into the barbel, taking a further 8 fish to just under 9lb. I managed to save the blank with 2 barbel and 1 chub. Thank god for that!

Canoeists were all good. 1 little tip - if you want them to go on the far side tell them near side bank and vice versa because none of them can paddle straight anyway!

Thanks to everyone at Wye & Usk.