Feedback & Reports

Access is very challenging and the levels appeared low. Spent the first hour surveying the beat from top to bottom and another two hours finding accessible spots to fish. Frustratingly poor access and little signs of fish meant that I gave up after an hour of fishing and moved on.

Nice beat with plenty of swims available. The opposite bank had a lot of anglers and a working party going on. All fish on swim feeder and pellets. Many thanks.

3 Barbel, 2 Chub

5 Trout, 1 Grayling

Had few hours today fishing pellet on hook with halibut ground bait last light landed chub of 3-4lbs. River very low and fish not coming out to play.

1 Chub

Water very clear and the days' weather very changeable. Best barbel 6lb 6 oz best chub 4lb - all to pellet.

2 Barbel, 2 Chub

A great day brought to an early end when a group of canoeists decided to practice their watercraft in the swim which I had been building all day.

5 Barbel

No fish at all until evening. Then it went crazy. 14 barbel to 9lbs 10oz. Lost one barbel well in excess of 10lbs. 3 chub to 3lbs 9oz. Method used swim feeder and pellets.

14 Barbel, 3 Chub

Booked the Rectory, ready for the rain which was forecast at the end of the week, wrong!! I sat and watched Shaun try all the likely lies which were drying up as quick as he could cast! Nice to be on the river though.

3 Trout

After an 8 a.m. arrival, fish started rising about 30 minutes after the rain stopped, but what "rise" there was effectively ceased at 10 a.m., and from then until a 5.30 p.m. departure only a few oncers (or twicers!) appeared. A few PWs in the morning and some midge and sedges from mid-afternoon proved insufficient to get the fish very interested, and the wind veering and strengthening from west to NW in the afternoon probably didn't help much either. It has blown unrelentingly since early May - will it ever stop? Damned Jet Stream! In spite of a July "Dog Day" feeling, I found five trout, the best 14 and 16", the latter a plump 1.5 pounder, and seven ladies, all 12" Most fish were taken on HE emergers but a couple of grayling seen on the gravels in the Channels were "induced" with a GRHE nymph. Nothing on nymphs apart from them. I was probably out-fished on the day by an adult female and four adult-sized goosanders which flew up and down the beat several times during the day (as well as disturbing them in the river on the way up and back). Are there any plans to do anything about these? A much better way to spend the day than watching the cricket - ouch!

5 Trout, 7 Grayling

Fished 9 am - 3.00 pm. Not ideal time of day but fairly productive, steady bites for most of morning then tailed off later in day. Canoes dislodged a lot of weed which was a nuisance at times. Barbel 4lb - 7.5lb's, most chub 2 -3lb size bracket.
Discarded tackle found in some swims. To whoever: I understand your baiting needle had broken, but why fling it on the floor!? Some comments have said this stretch is a ''tackle grave yard''. To be honest I have never lost a rig on here.... On this occasion I hooked up several times with other anglers tackle through vast lengths of trailing mono in the water. I retrieved multiple feeders and rigs, some with with barbed hooks. Some of these rigs were very crude, with bulky swivels guaranteed to find a snag, and with hooklinks clearly much stronger than the mainline. On one tangled mess there was a decomposed chub attached. My first barbel had a length of mono and a swivel trailing from it's mouth.. There really is no need to use ridiculously heavy weights and huge 80 gram feeders in summer flows, no wonder you keep snagging the bottom. Use common sense and don't blast your feeder into thick weed on the far side! You can catch fish by dropping your bait into the near side, into a clear slot just yards out... try that first. I would urge anyone targeting barbel to do some research into how you make your rigs, so they don't become death traps for the fish. Plenty of information online.

7 Barbel, 5 Chub