Feedback & Reports

First time on this lovely beat.
In it's short space (400 yds) it had every feature on which to show a 'newbie' how to river fish - long slow glide, fast riffle, deep pool, shallows etc.. and was therefore a perfect choice.Easy and safe wading too, though all of the water can be accessd without getting your feet wet!
Plenty of bird life to observe - Buzzards, Swans etc.. no Kingfisher today though ...and no insect activity or fish rising during our half day 10am - 2pm. Tried nymphing and wets to no avail. Back tomorrow , without the student, hopefully for some fish.

See today's other return.

Managed around 2/3rds of the beat today, starting from the bottom, where most of the decent pools seem to be located. Fished klink-n-dink as nothing rising despite decent hatches of olives and mayfly. Once above the footbridge, the middle section is quite hard work in stronger flow, and it wasn't until I reached the Rising Sun camping area that some more likely pools were evident. There are a couple of easy exit points about half way up the next field, and that was enough for me. Five fish around 10" and one at 14", all taking the nymph.

6 Trout

Some surface activity in the afternoon and one decent fish lost on a dry olive. A few other takes missed until hatch tailed off around 4:00pm.

The river was basically unfishable in its present state.
Water chocolate brown cascading through and dangerous for wading even with a wading stick. I didn’t feel comfortable in any of the swims at the top end. I started in swim second from top fast flowing with a ruffle using streamer an. Anything else pointless. Lasted an hour pushing up into deeper water which around 4ft was not comfortable to wade in so I moved. I almost took a dive in the one below with the gravel bank on the far side depth went from 2 to 5 ft very close in and current extremely strong. I lost my footing and only saved from going belly up in the string current by grabbing a branch at the bankside. Apart from one swim at the top of the beat There were no swims where entry was reasonably safe and this hard a steep bank to climb out. Lovely setting but no chance of catching fish so with river rising cut my losses and left early. Wash off?

2 Trout about 8". Blowing a gale again.

2 Trout

1 Trout

First time on the beat apart for the noise of the A40, it's a great beat with a mixture of water to fish. A very windy and wet day, only two trout to the net with a handful getting away, all to nymph's.
Will definitely be back after taking a PB 17inch and one of 12inch.

2 Trout

Missed a couple of fish which I might have taken. However, the river still a little too high for most access
Not sure whether the tree clearing is a good or bad thing, time will tell

2 Trout