Feedback & Reports

Day three on Howcaple river level still good some colour hot sunny midday so fished early and late ,four barbel in the 6-7lb range .

4 Barbel

River running very low and clear, even after recent spell of heavy rain. Some parts of the beat inaccessible and a couple of trees down in the upper part of the beat.

Wonderful stretch of the Wye but the river here is very inaccessible and difficult wading. No Salmon showing today despite best efforts. Entertained by the RAF low level flying along this stretch of the Wye, buzzed on 3 separate occasions by a Chinook Helicopter, Tornado Fighter Jet and a very large Transporter plane, excellent!!

beautiful afternoon the fish seemed to be very skittish today. quite a few fish rising but all in the flat water.

River at 62 degrees, a tad warm and a bit too high and coloured according to Mick.......thank you Mick for providing my excuse for not catching today.

First time on this beat for me, and I liked it a lot. Excellent access - thanks to whoever had strimmed the balsam and other undergrowth. Fished from 1715 to about 2000, on a beautiful sunny evening, with sandpiper and kingfisher on the river. As the river runs north-south here, the evening sun reflecting off the water into my eyes made seeing the fly challenging - I was fishing a duo, with a Sturdy's Fancy and a parachute Adams. A bramble scratch a week or two ago had caused a leak in one wader, so I became progressively soggier. I missed a good few, but after a struggle got one decent 38cm grayling on the spider in fast water at the mouth of the Edw. I took it home for supper.

1 Grayling

4 Trout

Nice to get a warmer day this August although the northerly wind blowing downstream did not help presentation. 9 fish in the morning from Lady Alexander's on a mixture of small dry flies and a further 3 on nymph from the deeper faster section at head of pool when things had gone quite with the dry fly. Lost one very decent fish while nymphing. Was the brown of a old large fish and managed to shake out barbless hook but not before rolling in front of me - would have been my largest grayling by a long way.
In the afternoon moved up to Abernant Stream - waded up full length and had nothing - worked my way back down and had 15 on gsb. Majority in the range of 8 to 10 ", a few a bit larger.
Hooked and lost a lot of fish on barbless hooks - would have had well over 40 fish otherwise.
Also enjoyed the airshow - they do fly very low!

27 Grayling

Not fished this beat before & so we were grateful for Mick's advice & company..Water a little high for this beat we were told but it fished well for most of the pools.Plenty of coloured fish showing but with the length of time they may have been resident and the water temperature like a warm bath we were up against it perhaps?Canoeists were all very polite including several parties of youngsters.Summer fishing can be hard work at times!