Feedback & Reports

4 days on this beat couldn't have been better with a rising river and some colour the Barbel fed continuously with 91 fish and plenty of chub all caught on feeder tactics from various swims unbelievable four days thank you angling dreams.

91 Barbel, 8 Chub

Arrived at 8am to find the river looking good after some rain at the weekend. We selected a comfortable swim for the pair of us and I landed a 9lb barbel on the second cast! We got some great advice from Don, Tony netted a 4.5lb barbel and lost a couple more fish, so we decided to try other swims as the sun had now come out. Early afternoon I had another 9lb barbel and a 4lb and 4.5lb chub. By early evening we were sunburnt but the action was more consistent and I managed another 4 barbel, including another 9lb fish and a number of chub.
A great day on the Wye with good size barbel - 6 fish for 50lb - on a great stretch and I gave Tony a taste of his own medicine following the pasting I received on the first outing of the season!

7 Barbel, 8 Chub

Water coloured and about .71m when I arrived. Decided spinner better than fly. John Lewis had arrived earlier and had no luck before lunch spinning with red and gold fc. He returned to the car at the lodge and decided to have one lat try, changing to a yellow and gold fc. Bingo, an immediate take and he's into an 8 lb fish which immediately jumped and detached.
I persevered with red and gold and fished the rock with SM. No luck there, so SM moved to below the bridge. I followed half an hour later and changed to a black and gold fc. This produced an immediate take behind the large boulder midstream.
SM obliged by landing a surprise sea trout of around 3lb. Only the third such fish I have caught on this beat in 20 years. Thanks Stuart.
The river began to rise and colour up so I did some trout casting with Charles Rouse before leaving at 8pm. Water beyond .8m at that point.

1 Sea Trout

Although only a short beat it has plenty to go at, all fish caught on pellet and ground bait feeder.

2 Barbel, 4 Chub

River looked great, fish were taking a combination of meat and pellets.

8 Barbel, 7 Chub

Saw some salmon, but none caught

4 Chub

Nothing caught

Another fantastic day on a beautiful beat that is well kept by the legend Colin.
We went to our usual swim in the hope that the river level didn't mean that it was pushing through too much. On first glance we thought we were going to have to rethink our game plan as the river was pushing through but we decided to give it an hour and see what happened.
First cast with a 2oz lead saw it bounce straight round into the nearest snag it could find whereas 3oz seemed to hold just fine. We then started to pick off barbel and chub regularly throughout the day.
A brilliant day made even better when Colin came to see us and have a good natter. Lots of kingfisher action with one sat on a tree opposite in full sun for at least 20mins.

21 Barbel, 25 Chub

The river was up about 4 or 5 feet making the fishing a little difficult. Lost a lot of tackle but ended up with ten barbel and three chub between two of us. An enjoyable day in testing conditions.

10 Barbel, 3 Chub

River in good shape after recent rain. Quite coloured but on balance that does give the angler much needed cover on small streams. Felt the conditions were excellent but very little fly life and precious few rising fish.
However, casting a dry to likely spots resulted in 12 wbt, 6 big 'uns and 6 little 'uns. Best was 13" and all plump well conditioned fish.
For me, two points of interest. I am a para Adams addict, so promised myself on the M4 I would not fish this pattern today and tried many long forgotten flies in my box. What I observed was that of the 6 flies I used (elk wing olive, grannom, f-fly, bwo, olive klinkhammer and iron blue dun) they all seemed to work equally well. All flies were 14's so maybe this was the trigger. But I increasingly think on small wild streams the residents are opportunistic and if it's in their feeding zone they'll have a go.
The other point was the laziness of the take of the bigger fish. I'm used to my fly being smashed most of the year. But every large fish I hooked today was done in a slow, leisurely manner. Then of course all hell broke loose!
Sorry this has been a bit of a ramble but far too often I fish at 100 mph doing the same thing as I did last time, and the time before and the time before that.......

12 Trout