Feedback & Reports

Quite a slow day compared to previous experience on this stretch. 9 barbel, and 4 chub between us. A beautiful stretch but with relatively few places where you can access the river bank. The greasy banks meant that even some of those were unsafe to fish. I'm sure we will be back.

Lovely day despite horrendous shower in the afternoon.6 x chub including my personal best at 6lb 1oz !! 3 x over 4lb. 4 barbel including 1 x 5lb 2 x 6lb 1 x 8lb 2oz.

Had a great day here, two of us fishing took a total of 9 Barbel to 8lbs and a decent chub from the top of the fishery. Fishing was very quiet during noon through to five pm. Really enjoyed the location with lots of wildlife to watch when the fishing was quiet. The A40 does drone a bit but after a while you just ignore it. All the fish fell to elipse pellet fished over a bed of groundbait. As usual the river is tough on tackle so be prepared to loose some. Will be going back once there is some water in the river again.

Lovely day's fishing, thanks to Don who readily gave his time to show us the river. We were all pleased to see identifiable pegs with good access. I struggled to catch with just one chub to show but the other three shared 13 barbel, 3 chub and 2 eels. I think we will be back.

I said we would return and we were not disappointed,we fished 2 days and between us we caught 22 barbel 6 chub an eel and a very hungry dace that had a go at the halibut pellet. The successful method was groundbait feeder with hair rigged halibut pellet.

Hopefully we will return in September or October for another go. If you want to catch fit well conditioned barbel I recommend this fishery and would like to thank Don and Rudi for the information the gave us over the two days.

Arrived to find the river up about 3ft very coloured and knew we were in for a hard day. We fished all sorts of pegs with every conceivable method and bait combination and managed 3 eels up to 3 and a half pounds on meat until 7 oclock when we finally managed to contact a few barbel. We then had 7 in the next hour up to about 8lb before having to leave for home.

A bit slow today; river was very clear compared to my last visit. Only 1 chub caught in the morning then had to wait till the evening for the barbel to put in an appearance. Only 2 landed, best 7.10. A slow day but enjoyable none the less.

Five days on WUF waters was something to look forward to and we were not disappointed. Day one found G and D perplexed since last year's swims at Caradoc had disappeared so we started afresh testing new ones. Late afternoon saw the first barbel in the net and then as, surprisingly, water levels began to rise eight more were netted before we retired for the day.
Rain in the mountains on Sunday had produced a flash flood and we were greeted with a rise of 7 feet of muddy weed strewn torrent at Lower Ballingham. Ever helpful WUF staff diverted us to the Lugg where the opposite was the case and this delightful small river, rather low, made finding barbel difficult. After fighting our way through a jungle of Himalayan Balsam feeling rather like the Ellawe tribe we finally emerged tousled and sweaty but fishless.
The following day we returned to Lower Ballingham and found water levels dropping fast so settled into two swims on the Lower Bridge Pool. The barbel were feeding as usual three quarters of the way across the river, - why are they always on the opposite side ? - but once we had found how to hold the bottom with our feeders we caught 10 barbel and 4 chub.
The last 2 days were on Holme Lacy 3. G took his favourite swim part way down while I went the distance and fished the last swim. We were not disappointed and for once didn't need Colin's expert guidance. G caught 10 superb barbel and 4 chub while I landed 19 hungry chub and 5 barbel. An eventful day.
The same swims on the last day were less productive as the water level was reaching normal and clearing and the fish had fed. So the tally for the day was 11 barbel and 18 chub.
An excellent 5 day break in gorgeous surroundings with each beat to ourselves.

8 barbel between us to 9lb+ on pellets. Drifting weed made fishing difficult.

On arrival at the car park at the bottom of the beat we were greeted by Rudi who gave us a helpful account of what to expect from the fishery.
We spent a long time walking and looking around the beat before deciding where to fish after the worst excesses of canoeists had passed at about 4 o'clock. A nice variety of swims of varying character to choose from.
JM decided on a swim in Leggs Meadow which I had dithered over - and I chose what I thought looked like a classic barbel spot down towards the lower end.
The river was low and in need of rain to get the barbel movng throughout the river.
They didn't show up in my principal swim or the other couple of spots I tried, although I did catch 8 chub to around 4lb. There were salmon jumping regularly and I'm pretty sure I saw 3 different fish.
Meanwhile, JM back in his slower water had done what I fully expected (having rejected the swim myself) and caught a brace of barbel, losing a third. Best fish 8:02. He also spent some time watching and trying to tempt a huge chub which was harrying the fry in front of him.
We both had the pleasure of meeting Don, the fishery owner, who was helpful with advice, very interesting on all aspects of his fishery and the Wye scene in general, and clearly passionate about it all.