Feedback & Reports

Caught around 30 fiesty young barbel in the 1.5 to 3lb range. This is very encouraging to find two to three year old fish in what appeared to be large shoals. Rarely catch barbel under 5lbs usually. We also caught a few chub to 4lbs and half a dozen barbel in the usual 5-8lb range. All taken on halibut pellet.

Bring on the Indian Summer if this is what is going to happen - sunny and hot all day but pretty breezy too from mid-morning until late afternoon. Early stonefly, a few PWs but none of yesterday's olives seen further up the river at Abernant. Very few rises; mainly oncers. However, we managed to catch 42 grayling between us (but very few trout). Most grayling taken on emerger patterns irrespective of whether they were rising or non-rising fish. Flies included HE, olive and PW emergers and Grayling Steel Blue (about 1/3 of all emerger-caught fish taken on this pattern). L's catch, whilst fishing duo, also included eight grayling taken on a tiny, gold tung-headed pink nymph whilst D, less productively at this time, slavishly persevered with emergers (the benefit of ringing the changes)! Fish from 8-12 inches, and a significant number in the 13-15 inch class. A good day to reward L's journey from the Dee.

2 Rods fished today 2nd trip of the week! 2nd 10LB Barbel ( 10lb 4oz ). Total was 5 Barbel & 3 Chub to one rod. Same tactics Pellet & paste. If you want big fish this is definitely the stretch for it.

2 early mornings and 3 evenings fished. Salmon were spotted by the willow between the Upper Rocks and the Rocks on the wooded bank, at the Rock itself, below the Chine and at the cables downstream of the bridge. Sufficient in number to be fishing with purpose. I enjoyed fishing the Upper Rocks and Rocks with the double handed rod. My casting has improved from the left shoulder, left hand up. Fished for trout on Friday mid morning at Wood Stream, caught 7 small ones lost 1 good trout plus missed a few. If we are having July weather at the end of September, can the season go into November?

Hot and sunny day. Five Trout caught all on dry fly. Met Stewart retired Game Keeper who made the day with his amusing tales and expert knowledge of the river. Excellent fishery with easy to find insructions from Wye and Usk Foundation.

6 trout on Klinkhammer or gold head nymph. One at 10oz retained.

After enquiring with the WUF for a 5 rod beat, Wyastone was booked after negotiation with the owner to accommodate us, this turned out to be one of our poorest days ever on the Wye and in effect a £100.00 day ticket for only one productive swim.
Again directions and instructions from the WUF spot on, but despite searching many of the swims downstream of the overhead wires, as far as the shallows at the bottom of the wood, only the pylon swim produced and fish, not a single bite was had anywhere else along the beat. Again it was possibly down to the bright sunny conditions, however apart for the water between the rock and wires, where several large fish crashed out, not another rise was spotted anywhere with the river looking devoid of fish.
The wire swim did produce a total 22 Barbel with fish averaging from 6lb up to 9lb, an awesome return with a couple of the guys sharing the bulk of the fish, but most disappointing for the others, on a plus note there were far more accessible swims available than first thought, just a pity about the returns.

A lovely autumn start with the odd oncer rising. The fog didn't clear until about 9.30 a.m., by which time I had taken five grayling on a hare's ear emerger and Grayling Steel Blue. Once the sun came out things got tougher (and it stayed out all day). The wind became quite strong and blew hard upstream until mid-afternoon; not too helpful for ideal presentation but by early afternoon I had taken ten fish. A few pale wateries and some olives (probably LDOs) appeared for a few hours around midday plus the wind brought the bonus of substantial leaf fall complete no doubt with insect passengers, so I kept going with surface patterns as at least some fish were in heads-up mode (although I had taken one fish on a Red Tag spider on a washing line up from my emerger). Moved to the upper section at about 1.30. and there, until late afternoon, took most fish on the GSB. As in the morning most of the fish taken were non-risers but the GSB was happily taken by those that were. Some fly about into early evening including some sedges, and some rising fish, and more grayling were taken on the two emergers. Finished the day with 24 grayling including one chubby 17" 1.75 pounder, two 14", eight 13", and three 12" fish; the rest being 9-10". Oh and one parr and two 3-4" grayling (good news) - a delightful autumn day's fishing.

Two small Brown Trout and one handsome Grayling of about 12". All came to a small Phesant Tail Nymph. A beautiful early Autumn day but hard going on the river. Nothing showing on the surface.

Glorious sunshine all day but it didn't stop the grayling from feeding. Approx 20 grayling up to 1.5lb and 3 wbt up to approx 1lb. The grayling were well spread out and appeared in all the likely spots. Majority of fish taken Czech nymphing (didn't seem to matter what pattern) with a handfull of fish on the dry (red tag and black klinkhammer)in the evening.