Feedback & Reports

A lovely fishing beat. Fished a dry fly not much insect life rising but saw a few fish, will return next summer.

Raining but stopped about 13:00hrs, stayed over cast, river very low but a good flow. Started at top of beat (had a lift half way by farmer, THANKS). A lot of small fish, this ended when a pike started taking them as I tried to land them. Moved about half down beat, small chub and dace then a flat fish (dab) about one half pounds, well I was surprised. 20 mins later my PB barbel of over 10 pounds. Spent the last two hours fishing the pool by the first Croy again small chub, dace and two nice perch.

1 Barbel, 4 Other

Fished upper part, good day but slow and low water.

2 Barbel, 5 Chub, 1 Other

A stunning beat. I fished after a long dry spell but a night of rain. Disappointingly, there was a hatch all day but I only saw one fish freely rising all day. I saw one other large trout moving, but having fished 3 W&UF beats now and only caught one brown trout on a nymph, I'm concerned that not much of the £17 day ticket is going into stocking!
WUF Note: As far as we are aware, there are only one or two remaining fisheries that stock trout into the Usk. The Foundation's policy, and that of many fishery owners (to whom most of the day ticket revenue is passed to), is to boost wild stocks by investing in the restoration of habitat and access to spawning grounds. We are always happy to advise anyone struggling to catch on Passport beats - 01874 712 074.

1 Trout

First visit to this section of the river and even though the level is well down it looked very promising with a good flow, weather conditions also seemed perfect. We all settled in the Marl bed area as it was raining quite hard when we arrived and had high expectations of a good day, it wasn't to be...two of the rods didn't have a bite all day on the feeder, one bite and one fish to the third rod! We got the trotting gear out at mid-day and caught plenty of small dace and chub but nothing of any size. One of those days I suppose?

1 Barbel

Full cloud cover that reached down and touched the ground with some typical Welsh drizzle-in fact it rained hard for some of the time. Temperature ranged from 15 to 18. Water was thin and very clear; only in deep pools of upper beat did the bottom vanish. Large Browns (like March ones,except it is September), tiny grey dusters and very few brown/purple mayfly (?) were hatching. Fish ignoring the lot - perhaps 1 rise all day. Took fish on a gold bead GRHE and nothing else would do. WBT to 5" and salmon parr. Onto the upper beat: I missed the beat stop sign and found myself in a gorge with a couple of pools stuffed with fish - Having lost my 5th GRHE I had the chance to experiment - nothing else (honest). In higher water that section would be dangerous to wade... I went swimming twice.
Despite the rain and the spooky fish, I had a fantastic day (11.00-6:30) and didn't get to fish Hergest as planned. Great day out - if a little bruised!

4 Trout, 3 Other

Didn't have time to fish this stretch as was occupied on Aberedw. See my report on a great but wet day.

Booked the beat for 3 days from the 19th - 21st Sept.
River very low and clear. Fished from top to bottom during the 3 days but almost failed to find some feeding fish of any kind. Tried every trick in the book but could only produce 2 Barbel and a couple of Chub. They were simply not having any of it. Andy, the Keeper/Bailiff is a super chap and could not have been more helpful in our quest for a catch - but we still failed despite his valuable advice. But that's fishing.
The swims are on very steep banks and very slippery and dangerous when wet - not suitable (in our opinion) for anyone elderly or slightly infirm. Some work and maintenance by the Estate could remedy this and make fishing on this beat a lot safer.

2 Barbel, 3 Chub

Fishing two days Friday and a few hours Saturday. On Friday 26 barbel to 5lbs 16 chub. For numbers this was the best day of a fabulous week with a great bag of barbel again from the super productive bottom pool and lots of chub. On Saturday we had 11 barbel 3 chub during a short session with heavy canoe traffic so only fished a short while late morning. Very clear and in the shallower water the barbel are being spooked by swans and cormorants flying over. Nonetheless a good end to our best weeks fishing on the Wye ever. Thanks Don and WUF.

37 Barbel, 19 Chub

Little surface activity although some olives were about. Two small trout (both around 5" to 6" and safely returned)caught on size 16 GRH nymph below fast moving riffle near the top of the beat.

2 Trout