Feedback & Reports

Fished for a couple of hours am. Very cold first real sunshine of the year but it didnt help the fishing.

6 x trout 6-8 inches on Gold Bead Hare's Ear Nymph. Inspired by MS from Bristol (see Cannop Brook report 27 March) I gave the Bideford Brook a try on a very cold Good Friday morning. Plenty of cold water rushing down, but a few brownies were prepared to pick up a nymph trundled along the bottom in some of the deeper, slower holes. Cold as the wind was, this one is well sheltered by trees and high banks and in fact not much above sea level and just a couple of miles from the estuary.
Back in December, FW of Mitcheldean and I trimmed this beat. It's quite amazing now to see the changes caused by the intervening winter floods: plenty of timber down, deep pools have been filled in with gravel and new dubs scoured out by the currents. We will have to learn it all again.
Those who know this little stream might be pleased to hear that, during late autumn, a salmon grilse was photographed attempting to jump the old eel trap weir in Blakeney village. If it succeeded, this would place it in the even smaller Blackpool Brook above.

6 Trout