Feedback & Reports

Arrived to bright sunshine and started with duo system. Caught a few fish on both so changed to dry. Caught grayling up to 7ins and wbt to 6ins. River in nice condition. Became overcast and the fish went down but a good day in nice surroundings.

10 Trout, 5 Grayling

Always a pleasure fishing this beat with the nice garden opposite.
Moved from our first swim as there was too much weed to get snagged on which wasn't visible in the still slightly coloured river. It paid off and we started catching barbel after about an hour and steadily after that. Pellet feeder again being the method today.
Most of the barbel were in the 7lb range so a good average size. I cleaned off any lice found on the barbel in the net in the water which were mainly at the back of the dorsal fin or on the pectorals. One barbel leaked out some eggs on the unhooking mat which I have never seen happen before.
Todays wildlife included a little egret, kingfisher flying under the rods, sand martins again in the far bank nesting in drainage holes in the wall and of course a buzzard or two again.
No taxi service available this time but we are fit and able. Its a long walk if you aren't.

10 Barbel, 8 Chub

A bright sunny day which became overcast early afternoon when the fish began to bite. From then on all action for the rest of the day. Barbel of 8lb 12oz and 8lb 2oz were pb's for both of us plus plenty of Chub to 4lb 8oz. Method was pellet and groundbait feeders with a small pellet on hook.
This was our first visit to The Creel and we had a great day's fishing.

8 Barbel, 26 Chub

This beat is ideal for an evening session when the days are long – we got three and a half hours fishing in. The river was slightly turbid when we arrived but cleared through the evening. The new fencing has improved the beat no end with much more bankside vegetation and is to a design that is different to any we have encountered elsewhere – access is much easier than on other fenced beats.
When we arrived I put a size 16 olive parachute on – but that didn’t stay on for long. The martins were swooping – and taking mayflies! Duns were hatching and there were a significant number of spinners as the evening wore on – in July….
The deeper water at the bottom of the beat yielded a fat small trout and a similar sized grayling to the mayfly so the omens were good as we moved up. Another fish rose on the tail of a pool – suspected a similar sized fish as I covered it – only to hear a loud splash in the run behind me. Mayflies were still around as were some very large almost black sedges and a fish in the run was enjoying supper. Don’t tell the chalk stream boys but I sent my parachute mayfly down the run and when it got to where the fish was I gave it a twitch. Wallop – a lovely 13 inch trout. As I was landing that one there was an even bigger disturbance further down the run – so back down went the mayfly, further down before the twitch and thump…the reel screamed as a good fish headed down the pool. 5 minutes later a beautiful 17 inch trout came to hand – perfect in fin and colouration. At that point I would happily have packed up and gone home but there were more fish to be caught. We ended up with 13 trout in the seven to nine inch bracket apart from those two mentioned, along with a couple of grayling - all safely returned. James got broken by a similarly large fish that took him under a tree….
The evening started with a chat with the friendly farmer who was also there to see us off – many thanks. The fencing kept the bullocks just far enough away although they were determined to see if they could lick us over the fences – always inquisitive. But fantastic fishing….thank you – and we didn’t even get to fish our favourite usually most productive pool, ran out of time.

13 Trout, 2 Grayling

One trout was caught and both rods fished on worm. Having not fished the reservoir for many years I was surprised to find that it now holds a large amount of perch. I feel that there is a lack of information boards regarding fishing areas around the dam and we failed to find what time we could fish until.
It seems that the upkeep of the reservoir is not what it should be which saddens me as this is a beautiful reservoir in an idyllic location.

1 Trout

1 x Brown Trout with worm, 1 x Brown Trout on fly.

2 Trout

Fished the afternoon. There was an olive hatch at about 2pm. Caught on klinkhamer style greenwells. Missed a few others and frightened some as river was clear. This happened mostly in the flat watered parts of pools. A relaxing few hours in the company of a couple of soaring red kites.

1 Trout

Lots of fish moving through the beat. Water carrying some colour but clearing slowly throughout the day. Put a fly through Little Stream a few times and span the rest.

Pulled even more bloody himalayan balsam

4 Barbel, 5 Chub

Excellent days fishing on interesting bit of water 7 fish caught on either bead head pheasant tail nymph with peacock dubbing collar or green copper john fished under klinkhammer other fish hairwing sedge. Most of fish caught in last 2 hours of day. ALL fish were released

8 Trout