Feedback & Reports

Dry fly and New Zealand nymphing for brown trout. Water very low and clear. Cold North West wind.

18 x trout 6-15 inches, 2 x grayling 10-14 inches, North Country spiders. A day of sunshine and showers with a downstream wind strong enough to move the chairs along the verandah of the fishing hut. That's our strongest gale definition here. The river was at 14 inches, which is a reasonable trout fishing height, somewhat coloured and rising slightly. Dry fly didn't work well but fish happy to take siders, mainly Little Dark Watchet and Hare's Lug and Plover.

18 Trout, 2 Grayling

No fish caught but did not stay late. Fished for the afternoon only. River quite low. Used both wet Tenkara style fly and dry sedge. I did manage to rise a single small fish. No fish were seen to be rising.

Barbel to 11lb. Chub to 6lb 12oz. All taken at the far bank on pellets. Over cast most of the day with odd showers.

16 Barbel, 4 Chub

Extra water in river and lightly coloured, expectations high! However, despite a promising 5lber within 10 minutes, general expectations were not met. That said as usual a day on the Wye is always enjoyable and this was no different. 3 fish of decent size also lost, two to snags and one totally smashing the rig.
Some movement of anglers on opposite bank and we did wonder if we were going to be bothered by them fishing opposite but despite a few looks at the beats they all moved on, thankfully.

3 Barbel

A complete blank! Lost 4 fish - one of which judging by the fight and amount of line it took was big. Hoping for a better day tomorrow!

The river had risen about a foot or so after the recent rains. Good colour to the water.
Barbel were between 7 and 9 pounds. Chub from 1 to 4 pounds.
I fished just down from the boat house at the weir garden.
Barbel caught on feeder fished pellet
Chub caught on feeder fished meat and float fished bread flake. It's a good walk from the car park and the banks in areas are a bit wild. I only fished from 3pm to 8pm due to working. Great beat in a beautiful location.
Just booked next visit!

4 Barbel, 15 Chub

Water low, I fished from 9am to 5pm. Only dry fly fishing. The fly of the day was a small klinkhammer with a grey body. 2 trouts about 13 inches.

9 Trout

I last fished this brook 2 years ago and found it much better than it was then, especially for access. My visit was not helped by Western Power's gang of men cutting trees where their lines crossed the river but I managed to coax 5 rises from an apparently lifeless river, hooking two and landing a little beauty of 8". A good enough day and I will visit it again next year on our visit to the Forest.

1 Trout

Remembering some cautionary words from the Booking Office about tricky wading and the likelihood of ending up with a wet arm or worse on Fenni Fach, I tackled this beat with sleeves well rolled up and full knee and shin pads from Frank at Guide’s Choice Flyfishing Tackle (no commercial connection, just a very happy customer).
By getting right down and crawling stealthily (and safely!) across the bedrock shelves in the middle of this beat, I was able to creep up on the trout with dries and a Lucas-style presentation leader. I blew a couple of chances on good fish - including one where I hooked up briefly and then got the long rod tip stuck in an overhanging tree - but I was pretty happy with 7 trout to about 12 inches. And now I know where the really big ones live…

7 Trout