Feedback & Reports

Canoes were a pain but we caught a dozen or so barbel from the bottom end of the Rope Pool. Biggest around 8lbs. Salmon everywhere but no barbel from the Vanstone or above the Ford Stream. Will bring the salmon rod next time.

Arrived at 7am, caught a 7lb barbel at 10.30am, then 4 chub during the day before an 8lb barbel at 7pm.
Great setting as usual, perfect days fishing...

2 x Barbel caught and 2 x big fish lost. The angler sharing the beat with me that day also caught barbel. Cracking day, will definitely return.

2 rods fished for 3 hours on the lower part fo the fishery. Feedered hemp and pellet on the hook produced 8 barbel to just over 9lbs. Although the water's a bit slower here the fish are there and with a bit of patience it's as comfortable and rewarding as barbel fishing gets.

The weather was bright and sunny until late afternoon with nothing happening. Then we had overcast conditions with a few showers. Caught 2 chub of around the 3lb mark and a barbel of 5lb 9oz. Fished meat at the corner tree end of Maddox.

Fished Maddox with meat for a couple of hours early evening. Had two barbel (7 & 6lb) and a chub (2.5lb). Weather was overcast with rain at times. The banks are quite overgrown but the fishing is good where you can get into the water!

A lovely dry day with a few short lived showers that passed quickly. As with everyone else this time of year water was low and clear with a good bit of weed growing now, as to be expected. Pretty much "canoed" out of it from 10 - 2 but then it settled down. Not a touch for me though. Saw 4 or 5 resident fish jumping around in the top end but your not getting those on a fly. Ran into a couple of coarse anglers who were true gentlemen. After a serious chinwag and a bacon sandwich courtesy of the boys I resumed in the evening but with no luck. Could see where some choice runs will be though when the conditions will be kinder. Thanks WUF and J and R "coarse" chaps for the good time.

Fished from Saturday through to Monday, as others have said the river was low & clear and the heavy canoe traffic pretty much put a stop to daytime fishing, so spent the day chatting and making bacon sarnies for our new American friend who was Salmon fishing. Caught 2 Barbel on Saturday... 5lb (netted by the USA!) & 7lb from the Vanstone pool, 3lb chub Sunday evening and a broad shouldered 9 pounder Barbel from the rope pool Monday morning (thanks for the tip Adam!)

After a night of over indulgence and four hours sleep I arrived at the fishery full of anticipation. The river was very low and clear with lots of weed so I plumped for a swim near the Vanstone Pool with a clear channel down the middle. Fishing by 8 a.m. I had a 3lb 2oz chub almost immediately so I was expecting great things. Sadly it proved to be a false dawn and as it was a Sunday the river went canoe crazy. All were, to be fair, sensible and courteous but a series of bizarre sights drifted past constantly and made fishing almost impossible so I decided to catch up on some sleep as it was a very hot and bright day anyway and far from ideal for fishing. Around 3 hours later I woke up feeling dehydrated and pessimistic but at least the boat traffic had died down a lot. I cast out a feeder more in hope than expectation. After around half an hour the tip smashed down twice very quickly and I struck into what was obviously a big barbel. I counted my blessings as, for reasons best known to itself, the fish stuck to the clear channel in the middle of the river and tried to head off upstream. I am sure if it had tried to get into the weed at the sides I would have lost it. Anyway after several long and powerful runs I prised it up off the bottom and eventually could see it up in the water. When I finally started to get the upper hand I thought it would be virtually impossible to net the fish without it getting into the weed first. Once agin I was lucky and she was as quite as a lamb as I drew her to the net. A new p.b. she weighed exactly 10lb 8oz and to say I was elated would be an understatement. Anyway a quick photo and the fish was returned safely and swam off strongly. Immensely broad across the 'shoulders'. Later on I lost another fish in the weed and landed a small chub.

The following day I made and early start lost a barbel and landed another of around 4lb before the swim died as the sun started to roast me so I packed up and made my way home around noon unable to stay until the evening when I suspect the fish would have been on the feed again. Excellent trip and will definitely be back soon.

3 days fishing with A.T who will I am sure enter his own catch report. 14 barbel over the three days to 8.25 lbs. 6 chub to 2lbs. 3 small eels. All on pellet/paste. Very quiet during the day.....watched a fine pair of sandpipers feeding in the margins. Evenings were the most productive time. Lots of cut weed coming down for the whole three days.