Feedback & Reports

River extremely low and clear with little pace - really struggled with nothing at all happening until last knockings when lost 1 barbel and mate had one and a chub. Desperately needs a good flush through.

1 Barbel, 1 Chub

Bright with long sunny spells light breeze, river falling and clearing quickly after being very mucky yesterday. 2 trout and 8 grayling on this beautiful beat that is full of features that constantly challenged my approach. First grayling on a tan klinkhammer then no joy at all on the dry fly. Switched to heavy bead head nymph running through deep channels but no takers. Worked the faster water with a team of gold head ptn's, some tugs but still no joy. Finally got it right with gold head ptn on point and partridge and brown spiders on droppers, game changer! All grayling took the spiders with the best about 12" . Trout took the ptn, the second one an healthy 14" one and a half pounder. Met the owners at the end of the day, very friendly couple and got talked into taking a fresh apple crumble home!

2 Trout, 8 Grayling

What a contrast to recent visits to Abernant - feast turns to famine.
River has risen overnight and was heavily coloured and the wind was too strong for my tastes.
Tried variety of dries but with no success. Nymphed most of time but again fishless.
Finally had a small grayling on dry late in day - was only touch all day but at least I hooked it.

1 Grayling

River conditions good with a little colour.
4 trout to 1 1/4 lbs caught on size 14 pheasant tail fished deep with indicator. 3 more misses. Only 2 trout seen rising all day.

My thanks to Jonathan Morris for some excellent guiding

4 Trout

So day 2 arrived, again decided to go to the woods stretch, river hadn't come up overnight so swims accessible

Stuck with pellet and feeder to start, using open end feeder and straight led, tried everything we had in the locker,
No signs other than the bleak descending on the ground bait cloud like piranhas on every cast, rolled meat under trees, down the channel, all to no avail.
To relieve the boredom fished banded 3mm feed pellets on waggled catching bleak and small dace one a chuck!
Regrouped mid afternoon and we're hoping for a glorious last couple of hours, Phil managed a 1/2lb Barbel then a 6lb 2oz Right at the death.

I failed to catch a Barbel for first time on the Wye, very frustrating 2 days.

Had a quick visit from one of the other two anglers booked on day, they had managed one chub from the meadow, had fished other stretches during the week but with very little to show,Last year they had cleaned up with same tactics from same swims, on same stretches but with a bit of colour in the river last year.
All in all took some learnings from 2 days, saw the Wye wild life in all its glory,despite the close proximity of the road,
Will certainly return for another go when the rivers had a flush of water through!

2 Barbel, 2 Chub, 24 Other

A bright day following rain the day before, not that the water levels had risen at all. First time on this beat and the first thing I saw was a Kingfisher scooting off up river. I fished duo style with 8' #4 rod, occasionally trying the dry fly on its own but without success. Only saw a couple of rises all day. There were really very few fish in the river and as I progressed upstream the reason became apparent. On the way up I had a glimpse of a large Mink. On the way back I had a better view of a pair of very large Mink - otter sized, obviously well fed on the fish from the stream. They are living in the base of the willow tree in the stream in the middle field. On the plus side there were plenty of fry and fingerlings in the water and varied fly activity above the water. I am sure the fishing would improve again quickly if the Mink were removed from the equation. I would also mention that there is a stand of Japanese Knotweed flowering happily half way up the beat on the west bank. An enjoyable day out in the fresh air. In the circumstances I feel lucky to have managed 3 fish when up against such opposition. The Grayling all took the nymph, a beaded GRHE with orange tag. I had one or two rises to the dry fly but no takes.

3 Grayling

River low and clear, but rising a little in the evening. Weather bright and breezy. Tried trotting for chub to start with, but no long runs between the weed, which was thick and little more than a foot from the surface. Changed to straight leger and sweetcorn and had three barbel and lost two others in an hour mid-afternoon. The bites dried up so moved to another swim for the evening where I picked up five more barbel and a chub on pellet. Fish up to about six pounds. An enjoyable six hour session.

8 Barbel, 1 Chub

Once again it was very slow going and judging by the reports from the other anglers on the beat it was not just me that was struggling. Hopefully this weekends rain will liven things up.

2 Barbel

2 Barbel, 1 Chub

2 Trout, 7 Grayling