Feedback & Reports

We fished from dawn til dusk and on a very high river. Although the water was ripping through at a fair pace, it was nicely coloured and showed promise for a good days fishing. We fished using pellet, meat and paste using both static and rolling tactics.
It was hard going all day and despite our best efforts the barbel didn't show; having said this we had three very nice chub and a very good day on a beautiful river.
We had hoped that our fortunes would change during that magic hour just after dusk but a visit from a hunting otter put pay to that!
Having not fished the Wye before some local knowledge and advice from the bailiff would have been welcome; however, he didn't contact me until the day after we had fished.

3 Chub

Caught the barbel on lone angler squabs and 2 chub. The rest were caught trotting with maggots. Caught one river carp around 10lbs. Also caught a lot of dace.
Thank you for making such good fishing available on a day ticket.

1 Trout, 2 Grayling, 3 Barbel, 7 Chub, 1 Other

As a result of the recent rain the river was carrying a lot of sediment resulting in zero visibility.

A 10lb hen fish from Beat 3 caught on a willie gun. Ably assisted in landing by Alistair Campbell.

1 Salmon

River in good condition, and two salmon jumping on beat 4, but not to our flies.

A Cock of 9.5 pounds fished on fly( Willie Gun) on the Withey pool.
I saw a Cormorant.

08/10 on the Rectory beat. Upper part is not accessible and has to many brambles. We were very disappointed about this.

WUF Note. The named salmon pools are all fishable on the Rectory. The section from Bridge pool to Ty-Mawr does not hold salmon and no effort is made to make it accessible

1 Salmon

3 Anglers fished beats 4 & 5, caught 6 small chub on waggler and pellet along with 2 Barbel, 7-15 & 9-12 feeder & pellet. Will return again.

2 Barbel, 6 Chub

Very strong coloured cock fish, 15lb, netted at 16:05 on no.3 beat at Whitney Court on a size 10 double Monro Killer. He had the line and 90 per cent of my backing out on three runs which was a little stressful.

1 Salmon

We became just two anglers very late in the planning of this trip. Started the first morning looking at beats 4-6. Spent a good couple of hours walking the starch having not seen it before. With very low water levels, choice of swims was not fantastic considering the size of the section. We chose poorly and fished in the deeper pools of beat 4 for the first few hours and moved onto fish in the afternoon in beat 5 in faster shallower water. Whist producing fish it also proved quite snaggy. Fished the same beat the following morning but waited until lunchtime for a bite. Left for the last few hours on bet two upstream from the Boat Inn pub but on the other bank. Ended bite less. Conditions far from ideal, very low, slow and very bright did not help with location. 5 barbel landed, sadly similar numbers lost.

5 Barbel

I located the fastest section of flow I could find on beat 4 and with the aid of a dog spike and rope gained access to fish it. After two hours without a bite I opted to wade across the shallows to the deep run opposite and using luncheon meat instead of pellets I immediately caught a chub. At last, the essence of Wye fishing, wading the river close up and personal to the quarry using balanced tackle. Some four hours of excellent sport completely justified the cost and effort of driving from London. Four hard fighting chub, lost fish and missed bites all components of a memorable session. I then returned to trying to tempt the barbel in a section of deep water for four hours without reward.
Next trip I will take more care to investigate river conditions to optimize the possibility of catching barbel but the chub are a pretty good consolation.

4 Chub