Feedback & Reports

What a fantastic piece of water, and a fantastic days fishing. Whilst the fish were very scarce, the sheer beauty of the river and surroundings made up for it! All fish were taken on nymphs, most success with a Hares Ear.
Wading is tricky at the start of the beat, but gets easier towards the top. Thank you WUF for the recommendation.

1 Trout, 3 Grayling

Fished for around three hours from 6pm no fly on the water and a cold wind for the time of year . Bumped into a mate who'd had five so maybe i was off pace a bit

1 Trout

1 Trout

Fished from 16.00 to 19.00. Nice weather, cloudy and sunny. Began at bottom of beat with usual para-adams. Lots of rises from tiny trout, 5 caught, 3/4 ins. ( not included in return). Noticed a few mayfly so put on a medium sized (14) grey wolf. ImmedIate effect as I got to the slightly slower pools about 200 yards up the beat. Missed several good fish but caught two x 10 ins and one lovely fish at 14 ins. Finished just beyond the end of the first field.

3 Trout

One 1lb grayling caught in the second pool up from craig lynn. Caught on damsel fly. Difficult wading.

1 Grayling

Four small brownies all caught using damsel wet fly. All returned.

4 Trout

It was a surprisingly poor day. The weather forecast was, wrong again, predicting some cloud and sunny intervals. It was in fact cold, wet and windy until about 1pm!! The water had fallen further and affected the path of the fly at the Rock Pool.
Some fish did begin to show, but when I caught one, it wasn't what I expected. I caught a shad, about 1lb and it was a dazzling silver with white belly, and leapt all over the place. It was safely returned.
I went downstream, where there are some really deep areas. Again, with some higher water levels, the path of the fly would be easier, but again, I caught a shad, this time 1 1/2lb with a rainbow stripe down it's side. I don't know what that means with shad but it was a very fine fish, and you can see if you catch a biggish one, say 2-3lb, it would be a formidable adversary.
I caught some smaller trout too. All fish on salmon flies. Rain due this week. Bring it on!!

2 Trout, 2 Other

2 x anglers fished the morning into early afternoon. The river was very low and clear, saw a couple of trout rise and a couple of fish spook, but otherwise there didn't seem to be any fish in the bits that looked extremely fishy! The fish were probably sat in cover (lots of lovely ranunculus growth, LWD and tree roots about!) or spooking well before we got anywhere near them due to the water conditions and time of day. The couple of trout we did cast to weren't interested in dries and we didn't get anything to take on nymphs in the deep holes. The beat looked like it had been fished all the way through by a couple of anglers very recently so may just have been settling down. A fantastic looking beat with decent access - would like to return when there's a bit more water in the upper section!

River at, I assume, a low summer level. Access to the river at the upper end seems to be only at the footbridge. It was virtually impossible to get into the water any where else at the top end. The path mapped on the "White House" side could not be located. This needs more detail.
However, although I landed nothing I had a few takes and one fish came off so I must have been doing it nearly right. I finished the day at the lower end of the beat which included watching two otter cubs playing in the shallows. They are not always enemies. Well worth the trip.

My two brothers and myself fished for 9 hours and caught 4 trout and 3 grayling, all small fish, none taken, we don't take river fish. There were hatches of flies, including may fly throughout the day but very rarely did we see a fish rise. All fish caught on buzzers or small hackled wet flies. Very hard going. We did however enjoy our stay with Linda at the Old Vicarage, excellent breakfasts.

4 Trout, 3 Grayling