Feedback & Reports

Our first visit to this beat. We were unsure how far up the beat extends. Up past the wood?
AW decided that the gravel beach in the cattle field looked good for a wade and a spot of trotting, but cattle showed more interest than fish!
Despite flogging a number of swims in the bottom half of the beat from the orchard down we remained fishless, which was a real surprise and a disappointment as the beat seemed to promise much. It poured with rain most of the day, but river remained low and clear.

With the river level being steady around 0.5 and only showers forecast we took the gamble. Five of us arrived to find there had been far more rain overnight than had been forecast and the river was coloured and rising fast. Sadly we were not able to fish it but we had a welcome walk along most of the water in preparation for a return visit. Spoke with the owner who was most helpful and apologetic confirming it was a wash-off. It rose to over 1.5 on the Cilmery gauge just after lunch!

We expected the recent storms to have an effect on the river. The conditions looked great a couple of days before our arrival but the bad weather was on its way. We fished another day ticket stretch on Friday afternoon and struggled losing a barbel with only caught one chub on the day, which didn't fill us with much confidence for our visit to How Caple on Saturday!

Once we arrived at How Caple it looked perfect but we were really up against the weather with the wind, rain and obvious rising river. Slippy banks and several swims looked a little risky to fish. Stunning stretch of river though. We fished about 6 swims, I had a couple of small chub then a move to the lower section resulted in a typical hard fighting barbel of 8lb for my dad. We will certainly return to this stretch and have another go when the weather is more settled. Very good access, short walk to the river and plenty of swims to go at, but a long landing net handle is a must on some areas and if the river is lower, I think some swims might require some climbing to get down.

1 Barbel, 4 Chub

We did not anticipate Storm Brian (who came up with that name!!) would be too menacing but the bottom of the beat would have been more suitable for windsurfing rather than fishing.
We endured a blustery day to say the least but the fishing was very good and we were delighted to find some Barbel feeding and caught decent sized fish throughout the day.
Playing angry Barbel with one hand on your rod whilst hanging on to your hat and trying to avoid sliding in the river is not to be recommended but certainly an experience we will not forget in a hurry.
Thanks to the owners and WUF for allowing us to fish this great beat...

12 Barbel, 2 Chub

4 Chub

An extremely windy day which was very hard to fish in. I believe it was the windiest of the year. Still managed to catch a nice hard fighting 4lb Chub and an Eel although quite by accident.

1 Chub, 1 Other

Weather conditions terrible managed to coax 1 Barbel out on boillie & feeder.

1 Barbel

1 Barbel, 2 Chub

A slow and unproductive day which featured very gusty spells, plenty of tangles and a lot of swearing! With no rising fish to be seen I fished duo and to my surprise a very large and heavy grayling took the indicator fly, I had forgotten to pack the tape measure so have to estimate it at 16” plus. I changed to dry flies but none of the size 16 or 18 patterns were accepted so I returned to duo and again the big fly was taken, and so it was for all the fish. Big barbless Sedge not sure what size and # 12 black and pink Klinkhammer.... and when trying these flies without the nymphs below there were no results. Trout around 10-11” , 2nd grayling 12” ish.

2 Trout, 2 Grayling

First time on the Wye in awful conditions... upstream wind creating waves, rising cold water. Fished below the woods, tried various baits with the feeder/pva bags and leads and between the two of us we had three bites resulting in three Chub all below 3lb. Disappointing but we will be back.

3 Chub