Feedback & Reports

Arrived at about 5.30pm on this Sunday evening, only to find that we could have started earlier as the Kayak 'traffic' had already stopped. Fishing the same swim as the previous evening, this time with swim-feeders and 14mm halibut pellets, within 30 seconds of Alan's first cast he hooked a nice Barbel! We fished till 9.20pm, and in this short session, we caught 6 Barbel to 6lb.15oz., and 3 chub to 4lb.
Our thanks to the Wye & Usk Foundation for making this fishing available to us, with very special thanks to Don Macer-Wright for his friendly approach and his invaluable advice. Superb fishing which must be enjoyed again!

Fished The Dukes (am) and The Hut (pm) on Sunday from 0630 'till the early evening. Bright, hot day unfortunately, but water clear and falling after a good spate. I ensured the fly was in the water frequently in line with the recommended tidal timings but saw very few fish and caught naught against all expectations. Beguiling water!

By the bye, some dog owners and their pets from the adjacent Dogagility show ignored the Out of Bounds signs and turned the river into a stick throwing, snarling, barking, churned up cacophony in the late afternoon. That was fun, so we three fisher folk on the beat departed.

Very hard fishing and no sign of any salmon. Mainly fly fished for salmon but tried for trout towards end of day.
Only 1 small brownie to report for a very long day.

3 wbt - 6-8". Fished variety of wet and klinkhammer with nymph under. Lots of small fish takes mainly on edge of fast water. Saw evidence of two larger fish but very quiet all day. Watched an otter for some time working over the pool at the top of the beat.

Lovely stretch that I didn't do justice. Ended with bits and a couple of decent chub while Andy had 4 barbel.

Cefn Rhosan Fawr, what a stunning place to fish.If there is a more beautiful place to fish on a sunny day, I have yet to see it. Chose salmon ticket but only caught brown trout, released back into the red hued water of river. A mink was seen with a trout in its mouth, and some amazing underwater swimming by a merganser duck, I think. My only gripe about this beat is the poor access or lack of a path in the upper stretch, which simply runs out and you are forced to wade. I think this would be a bit of a problem if the river was higher. A truly great day out though, and I spent as much time taking photographs, as fishing. Stunning.

28 trout between 3 rods, largest 14 inches. The boys' weekend in what Ward once described as "The Great Desert of Central Wales" continued. Claerwen, also known as the "Wilderness Fishery," a very large lake and the wild trout preserve of the Elan valley complex, is extremely daunting - or at least I found it so - like a great inland sea surrounded by mountains. Downwind, waves break over jagged rocks. It's a good half hour on a rough track by 4WD to reach the top end, by which point you are almost over to Teifi Pools and Strata Florida. It's a very steep-sided dam, too steep to fish in many areas, and the big problem seemed to be locating the fish. Be prepared to walk miles along a rocky shore, casting as you go. The ones we did find (and my two friends already knew the water quite well) were in the rare side stream bays or around weed beds in the even rarer shallow places. The received wisdom is that the best way to fish it in a breeze (and there almost always is a breeze) is by pulling a team of Black and Peacock Spiders or similar fairly briskly on an intermediate line. Small black lures are also said to be good. Not my favourite way of fishing, but a couple of fruitless hours with a floating line and the fact that nothing could be seen rising convinced me that it was so, and I eventually contributed a modest 5 fish to the total with the intermediate line. Hard work, challenging fishing, but wonderful views and all the fresh air and sun anybody could want.

Web booking faultless - directions and beat description good. First time on the Wye, Foy is a nice short stretch with about six swims more available to wading. Caught 2 barbel and 5 chub lost about 8 fish to weed and hook pulls. DOH! Fishing tailed off in afternoon and evening as the sunny conditions made conditions difficult in shallow water. Bait used was pellet, sweetcorn, and meat. Overall good fishing nice scenery and would go back hopefully with more water on. Thaks WUF

First time fishing the Wye, arrived early with 2 friends and the river lookes great, level was normal and flow not too fast, it looked idyllic. We started fishing about 6.30 and had 3 chub and 2 barbel by 9.30 and we were looking forward to a nice day's fishing. But then the canoes arrived! I'm not against sharing the river with others, I have canoed the Wye with my children, and as an angler I was conscious of not causing inconvenience to other people. It's a pity that most of the canoeists didn't have the same consideration. A few were ok and went past quietly on the far side, but the vast majority who were in hire canoes (and there must have been 200 canoes go past) showed no consideration at all. We had to constantly ask them not to go over our visible lines, we had people crash into the bank beside us, we had 'flotillas' of idiots having water fights, messing about and even capsizing in our swim and this went on all day. We caught just 2 fish between 3 of us between 9.30am and 7.30pm after the last of the canoes had gone - I stayed on and had another chub and 2 barbel.

Fishing is a fickle sport at the best of times but to pay £15 for a ticket and then have your day ruined by people who show no common sense or courtesy is not acceptable - be warned!

My son, Alan, and I arrived at about 6am to find the river running quite high, and having never been there before we had difficulty in identifying fish holding areas. But thanks to Don Macer-Wright's arrival at about mid-morning and his valued guidance, we were able to see how and where to fish.
With many kayaks on the river we determined to return for an evening session.
Returning from Bristol at 6pm, we fished from 6.30 till 9.45pm. We chose to both fish at the lower end of the section, one rod each, using simple running legers and hair-rigged baits. With 16mm halbut pellets as bait, we caught Barbel from the very first cast.
In the three and a quarter hour session, Alan out-fished me with 5 Barbel ( best 7lb.4oz ) and 3 Chub to 4lb.1oz.
My catch was three Barbel of 7lb., 6lb.15oz., and 5lb.
Drove back to Alan's home in Bristol looking forward to the following day's evening session.