Feedback & Reports

What a lovely stretch! River up and rose 3 ft plus while we fished. Bright orange with entire orchards floating past. For the first time this week the river really felt alive. Lots of small stuff continually pecking bait. 7 barbel caught and one lost in branches in the water in the bottom swim, plus a couple of eels on meat and some small chub.
Stan, the man who runs the fishing, was very helpful and gave us some useful advice and assistance, even if his dog ate my luncheon meat(!)
We got back to the car park up the hill just before dark, not making a great deal of noise but it set the dogs in the adjacent house barking. After a few minutes the owner of the house came out and started lambasting us for being so inconsiderate as to park in the designated car-park and not go elsewhere to load our cars (didn't say anything as constructive as to tell us where else we might go, or how anyone who had never been there before might guess that there would be a problem parking in the official car park). He got more and more steamed up and abusive before storming off asking us how we'd like it if people parked outside our houses. He wasn't listening when I suggested that most people lived on roads with people parking on them. I suspect he will soon expire from a burst blood vessel.

River high and red - small copses and herds of dead cattle floating by (only slight exaggeration). 6 barbel on pellet and 2 eels on meat from swims halfway up fishery opposite island. 1 barbel taken and one lost from bottom snaggy swim. River rose 3 feet during day. Thank you S for your advice and help!

We arrived mid-morning to be greeted by a rapidly rising river. With plenty of debris already coming through it was clearly going to be a struggle to catch anything and fishing the margins would be the only option. We sat it out in the last two swims at the bottom of Legg Meadow and tried a variety of baits, but neither rod had so much as a knock all day. At least we had other beats booked to look forward to over the next two days, when conditions would hopefully improve.

Rod 1 - 12 Barbel 3 - 10lb 2oz, 1 Chub.
Rod 2 - 4 Barbel 8 - 9lb 6oz.

Just after it got light enough to tie a fly on I caught a silver fresh 8lb salmon from the bottom pool of Wyebank at about 7.45 am on a 2.5" willie gunn brass tube and shortly after had another take which fish came off after about 5 seconds. Thursday afternoon the river was at 1ft 6" and had finally cleared but coarse fishermen on so I got down as the light was slowly building to find the river up 6" to 2ft and on the border line to wade. It rose 2" further whilst I was fishing. Left the river at 8.30 and back at lunchtime to find it filthy again. The curse of this river - as Hutton said the crab of the river is the colour, without which it would be the fishing playground of millionaires only. Once again I was lucky to find a short near perfect slot before the dirty water returned.

Fishing proved to be difficult with river rising by at least 3ft during the day following previous days rain. I had a 6lb 12oz Barbel early in the day but we had nothing else.

5 fish caught, the largest was 9lb. The access road down to the fishery from the road is in a very poor state, anybody with a 2 wheel drive vehicle beware.

WUF note - This track has now been repaired.

Arrived again to find the river pushing through hard and the colour of chocolate - it rose 2 foot whilst we were there! Only 3 barbel caught by CW (I blanked again!) all on pellet in a very short feeding spell at dusk.
One day, Caradoc will be kind to us....

River conditions atrocious. High, rising and the colour of milk chocolate. Fishing virtually impossible but had a go. Actually caught an eel but that was all. River continued to rise throughout the day. We had some nice views of floating trees!!

Arrived at 8, river 0.86m on the gauge (rose 6cms in next six hours). Well it finally happened after only twenty visits this year! A 12lb cock fish [colouring] was caught on an orange/gold flying C. My first salmon was safely returned. I am so thrilled.
A big thankyou to the two Toms, both great company on the river and freely giving of their wealth of knowledge.
Tom Hannon showed me the high water lie from which the fish was extracted and Tom Richards gave me great advice on modifying my spinning style and choice of lure. A big thank you to owner Barry for his endless encouragement.
Lastly, I am so grateful to the WUF for helping this Gwent boy back to his angling roots [first cast a fly for trout on the usk approx. 50 years ago]. Keep up the great work.