Feedback & Reports

First Wye Barbel caught at 6lbs 9oz. Fought well in the current and in excellent condition. Only bite of the day and fell to pellet in conjuction with a groundbait feeder. Father in law caught a Dace a cast and had a nice Chub to finish the day. Weed became a problem during the day which forced us to fish close in. We will be back to fish the Wye again!

Four rods fished from dawn till dusk. Started slow with one of us fishing for the pike with only one small one and a dropped run for his efforts. I started on the meadow and had a few sharp tugs but no fish. Moved into the middle of the wood at lunchtime and had a barbel first cast. Ended up with three barbel and two chub plus several lost fish. Lost a lot of feeders on the bottom rocks or weed Had problems with line gratting on an unknown snag mid river causing the lost fish, may fish braid next time. Foul hooked a fish which tore off like a train.
We all caught with Graham catching a solitary barbel of 11 pounds from the large crib at the start of the woods.
Don was very helpful. We will be back. Excellent fishery.

Brown Trout
2x weight unknown, approx 20~25cm each
2x weight unknown, approx 12~15cm each
Grayling
2x weight unknown, approx 20~25cm each
Trees
Not many this time!

I was suitably impressed with my accomodation in Builth Wells as I am with W&U's service - it's great and above all simple to undertsand and book, the interactive map of rivers and beats makes everything very simple.

A glorious autumn day spent in beautiful surroundings. Between two rods we had 5 Barbel and 3 Chub. The Barbel ranged from 4lb 13oz to 8lb 5oz. All fish were caught using pellet or meat. The infamous walk back to the layby through the steep wooded path gets you breaking into a bit of a sweat. Who said fishing is a sedentary sport?

4 Barbel to one rod including one of 10lb 6oz and 2 chub to 4lb to other. Barbel caught from swim downstream of Vanstone on halibut pellet. Chub caught further downstream on meat. Quite a few Salmon showing during the day from the lower end of Vanstone.

Lovely day, water at perfect 1'6" height, but unfortunately I caught no Salmon. At least one caught elsewhere on beat by other anglers during the day, and fresh fish seen jumping.

Had a go at Abernant again after a trip a few weeks ago. Very little rising today despie a fair hatch of small dark olives when the sun came out. I had 8 grayling mostly junior class of 9 to 10 inches but two better ones of 14 and 15 inches. I also had a small trout of 9 inches. Most fish came to size 14 and 16 olive nymphs. I think bugging time may be getting closer which is fine with me as I quite enjoy searching the depths as winter comes. As always all fish returned.

Thanks to O.B for the advise on the waders. I think I will try a pair of those sub zeros when it gets colder.

Also saw 3 cormorants today so will report to the angling trust website

Autumn grayling fishing on the Irfon is hard to beat with such beautiful surroundings. The added bonus of some superb grayling just puts the icing on the cake!

15 grayling between 10"-16" plus some fingerlings and a few out of season trout. Most caught short line nymphing.

First time on this part of the Wye. Beautiful weather, river looked good but not much action during the day. Caught one barbel about 8lb on luncheon meat,second rod didn't have any bites. Moved ourselves upstream to fish the second half of the day where I managed a chub 2.5lb on pellet, again no other bites but an enjoyable day anyway, will return again later.

Something over 40 grayling to 17 inches, half a dozen out of season trout. The majority of grayling at 14 inches, not quite senior class. This was the first really cold morning, misty and 3 degrees first thing, but later it became a most beautiful warm and sunny day. LD and I stayed true to the dry fly, but RE, despite all our teasing, fished Czech nymph style throughout and wiped our eye by catching more than half the fish. I supposed it serves us right for fishing with a man who has been capped for Wales. We caught up just a little in the afternoon as rises began and the traditional dry flies began to work their magic. LD remarked that he could actually see the colours on the fins of grayling as they came up for the fly - there must be something special about the autumn light on the Irfon. The end of a wonderful day was only slightly marred for my friends by hearing about what had happened to Wales in the Rugby. Finally in darkness to Builth for a drink, where people dressed in the red shirt were staring gloomily into their pints and not talking much.

More on waders (see Tuesday 11th October): My apologies, because I caused much confusion when writing about long-lived 4mm neprene waders by Vision. The correct name of these is Vision Sub-Zero, not Vision Extreme - sorry again. Also, it's worth mentioning that even if your breathables are leak-free, you are going to feel pretty clammy and uncomfortable if you spend a few hours in them wearing ordinary cotton trousers, especially jeans. The purpose-made fleece wading trousers are really a must, and I can recemmend the EWS ones by Hardy (which are not as expensive as most things by Hardy). Likewise, when it really gets cold, the specially designed thermal underwear (again, I can recommend Hardy EWS) makes a tremendous difference. Even if you are equipped with all of this and are mad enough to spend a day standing in the Wye in the middle of the winter, chattering teeth and not being able to string a sentence together is a pretty sure sign that it is time to get out! Finally Seth from the WUF advises that for a while he has been using Bison waders at 75 pounds each and gets at least a season's work out of them, which sounds like a pretty good deal.