Feedback & Reports

One fish lost in Top planks pool

1 Grayling

Arrived to find the river was quite low and clear, and opted for the lower beat. Here I was greeted by the sight of two young otters playing mid-river until mum ushered them away on sensing my presence. There were no mad feeding spells today, but I steadily accumulated a pleasing catch of 10 barbel up to 8lb 4oz. It was very slow to begin with, with no bites for the first three hours, then a steady spell of bites in the middle part of the day, before another dead spell followed by a steady run of bites in the evening. I kept ringing the changes with various types, sizes and shapes of pellet to keep the bites coming. There were quite a number of salmon showing, including one or two larger specimens. I can't help feeling these are keeping the otters well fed, as despite the presence of at least four of our furry friends including the large dog otter, there are still considerable numbers of barbel in the beat, and with little or no sign of otter damage to them.

10 Barbel

Bit of a patchy day but very enjoyable. This beat offers comfortable fishing with some swims more challenging for access. Make sure you take the R-hand access up the concrete slope in the farmyard and avoid driving into the cow slurry.
One angler cast around to find fish and bagged 6 barbel and a couple of chub. Second angler found fish in two places and bagged 4 barbel and a chub. Third angler was trotting and bagged a few chub plus a bonus perch on trotted pellet which just failed to reach the 3lb mark. Single pellet and very light feeding seemed to be the way.

10 Barbel, 8 Chub, 1 Other

15 lbs stale hen. Water still high and black with v.few fish remaining

1 Salmon

Cold day with very few fish showing. 2 nice grayling 14" and 12" one on gnat and one on nymph - both from Abernant Stream. Couple of other decent fish hooked and released early.

2 Grayling

Belatedly remembered the Forest of Dean streams were still open so sneaked in a trip on the last day to the Bideford brook. Very low and clear, most pools static. Did not see anything happening so started with the nearest I had to a rust klink. Got some interest from very wary trout but could not land any. Things went quiet till about 4.00pm, when in the last run a rise started. In the very shallow water I missed most but landed 2 at 8" on a small blue dun before all stopped again. Also met the owner on the way back for a pleasant chat including the spread of the wild boar!

2 Trout

River low and dropping and Barbel 4lbs to 8lbs caught very late in day. EP had 6 chub on trotted breadflake ranging from about 1lbs to 4.5lbs-a proper way to catch fish!!

3 Barbel, 8 Chub

An enjoyable days fishing; sadly no salmon today (except a kamikaze trout in the Ferry Pool) although with the water at about a foot on the gauge conditions felt good. It was nice to catch up with Roger Kempshall who was also fishing Gromain as we hadn't seen him since last year.

1 Trout

Two fish seen Mill pool and Rock pool. Trout and Grayling returned

1 Trout, 1 Grayling

Second visit to this stretch in a month, another very good day, but in many ways a lot different to last visit, no small chub or dace . All the chub caught were large fish between 4 & 6lb and in fantastic condition. Once again the barbel were mostly small between 1lb and 3lb. I think the fact that I am fishing either a big balsa float or a Waggler with 3 or 4 maggots is more suited to catching these smaller barbel. I suspect if you fished a static bait you would catch some of the larger barbel. The other angler on the beat did have larger barbel on the feeder and pellet, But I prefer to fish the float and keep active.
Thank you again WUF

1 Trout, 17 Barbel, 9 Chub