Feedback & Reports

River about 8 feet up meant top end was unfishable. At the bottom end the salmon croys were submerged and trees etc were piling through. I fished for 2-3 hours with no joy, headed to another stretch way downstream and bagged up in the evening - strange day.

First visit to this beat and filled with anticipation having read that it's a prolific beat for barbel and with plenty of swims to fish from.

The first part turned out to be spot on - the second part less so. I didn't walk the whole beat, but in the half mile or so I covered, I found 5 fishable places. As much of the beat is classic barbel water, would it be possible to create a few more safe perches in likely places? With the 2-rod limit, there's no problem finding a swim with fish, but a bit more variety of swims would be nice.

Anyway - I started off in the obvious swim below Carey Brook and had a 8lb barbel first cast. "Here we go", I thought - which is nearly always a mistake! One small chub next cast then nothing - not even bites. The 60 or so swans which were feeding, fighting and generally getting in the way didn't help. Wandered around a bit and chatted to the other angler, who gave me some helpful info on this and other stretches. Moved further downstream to a tricky spot which was shouting "FISH" at me. Barbel first cast. Managed to not say "here we go" and caught regularly for the rest of the day, finishing with 14 barbel and the chub.

Another splendid day's fishing in great surroundings. Thanks again WUF for friendly and efficient service, not to mention great fishing.

4 x Barbel 5-7lb on halibut pellets

Wet and extremely windy. River coloured though not as high as it had apparently been, but started rising again late afternoon.
Fishing hard going, impossible to fish the top half of the fishery safely because of rain, steep banks and water levels.
We managed 8 barbel between two of us from bottom section. Fish averaged 5-6 lbs with one larger at 9lbs, plus a handful of small chub on pellet & boilie combinations.
A tough but enjoyable start to our first visit to the Wye - Lower Ballingham tomorrow.

Had a late start as i waited for the rain to ease, and had planned to work my way downstream from the old viaduct, having fished the top end of the beat on a previous occasion. On arrival at the fishery hovever, the rain started again, so i decided to fish close to the car park and immediately above the viaduct. Fishing from midday until 6 p.m. the fishing was very hectic, and i finished with 24 barbel to 7lb 4oz and 2 chub of 3lb each. The other angler on the beat was from my part of the world and we had a good chat. He also caught well today on the lower section of the fishery. There appears to be a huge number of barbel in this fishery and i look forward to hpefully more swims being opened up in the future. Access along the banks has improved since my last visit in July.

Catch return - Nil. Unfortunatly the river was very high & coloured unsuitable for the fly.
Stayed at the Inn on the Wye at Kerne bridge it was very good, also they allow dogs.

A good but not spectacular day on a stretch that we have done well on in the past - 7 Barbel and 1 Chub to mainly pellet.

Water still high and very coloured and going through very fast. Eel 1st cast on meat, 1 and 1/2lb, then found it quite hard to hit bites as the line kept getting debris on, but we got a few small chub before lunch. Then decided to glue some swivels on heavy stones and use them as weights to fish in the fast flow in search of the bigger fish. Got 5 chub up to 2 and 1/2lb and a barbel of 3lb. Hooked a couple of larger barbel, but one straightened my hook and I couldn't get the other past the rocks hidden below the flow. Caught a dace before the wind got up and then we stopped getting bites. Saw 3 good sized salmon rising all day, one very big. Along with the kingfishers and birds of prey it's a great area to fish, we enjoyed the challenge and we will be back. Successful baits were meat, cheese, and corn for chub - frankfurter pellets for the barbel. Thanks again to WUF

Although the river had dropped probably 3 feet from the tide-line left in previous days, it was still chocolate, hammering through and carrying quite a bit of general detritus which, in particular made the tiny swim below Boy's Rocks virtually unfishable. The next two open swims in the woods were fine and in the hour or so we tried them John took one babrel at 7 lb+ and lost one, both on pellets. Moving down to the first field (the middle part of the beat) where there's one obvious swim but a number of areas you could fish as the balsam and nettles were nowhere near as impenetrable as they have been on other beats, again a decent fish was lost. Not being familiar with the stretch, the turbulent heavily coloured water made feature spotting a challenge and we resorted to feeding marginal glides under or around bushes and trees.
For the last part of the day we moved to the bottom field, switched to meat and paste baits and, again, concentrating on the margins using flora as features, we had two barbel around 6lbs from a swim at the end of the tree line that leads back to the lay-by stile, and a final 7 lb-er from the very last swim where the small stream enters.
All in all a very fair result from a rather straight beat where we couldn't scan features to fish to. Notably there were no snag issues on the bottom two sections so the bottom must be gravelly and quite benign, although the bump and grind progress of feeders and leads suggested loads of streamer weed, confirming what we'd seen on the satellite photos.

Thanks WUF

Lovely place to fish if a bit expensive with regard to lost tackle. One rod had to redo the lot at least 5 times and I managed to avoid losing too much replace one hook because it opened on a rock, barbel lost on the bankside rock and two other hooklengths lost.
Very nice to be able to sit in the car out of the rain.
One rod caught 4 barbel and lost one the other had 2 barbel and lost one.
Very hard fighting fish, excellent fun to catch.
Did not fish the Vanstone pool because I thought it had a nasty snag in it then found out the snag is on another beat, doh!