Feedback & Reports

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.

A red cock salmon took a small buoyant fly on a heavy shooting head as the cold mist cleared off the neck of the spring pool. My first salmon for a long time.

Second day after fishing Courtfield yesterday, set up with no action, then along came Don the owner made a suggesting of where to fish so Phil and moved. Pellet over pellet again, it was very slow for me - one barbel of 7lb. Phil though did it again, 3 barbel 3.0,5.0 and a 6.14 plus a 3lb chub. Thoroughly enjoyed our visit and will definitely return.

5 barbel and a chub between 2 rods all from the Old Wharf pool all on boilie. Fishing was tricky and the sucessful method was very long hooklengths and small baits.

The Old Wharf pool is the only real swim on this stretch, you can wade to the far bank in places and there are 2 other cribs, but the water is shallow and very fast. Perhaps in the height of summer this beat would produce better but I think the limited swim choice would mean that i would not return to this beat unless I had it all to myself. Met the owner who was helpful and full of useful information. Access is very good, bring a rod pod to help fish the cribs.