Feedback & Reports

Fished for a couple of hours in the evening. Saw some rises but didn't have any takes. Stayed at the Bell at Skenfrith, which was excellent.

First visit to this excellent new fishery; good variety of water, easy access from car park and usual stunning countryside. A really nice addition to The Fishing Passport.
9 barbel to around 7 pounds, quality chub and two eels, one of which was around 3 pounds.

9 Barbel, 4 Chub, 2 Other

A fascinating beat: despite real challenging clear-water dry fly flats at the top end (where an eight-inch brownie made my day by taking a long hard look at a #18 midge pattern – twice – before spooking horribly at a similar-sized CDC spinner) the upper half of this beat is dominated by long, largely featureless canal like stretches.
The lower section feels slightly more diverse, and this was where I hooked a really fine 16” trout in one of the fast, gravelly shutes. Some of the fallen bankside willows seemed to have been cut back a little too strongly, however: leaving these in place as sweepers (as on the Breconshire Fishery, for instance) would produce more bankside habitat for fish of all sizes.

1 Trout

Set in a steep (vertical in places) sided gorge with moss covered rocks and many fallen trees criss-crossing the stream, this was exactly the sort of fishing I was after.
Care needed to be taken when accessing the beat as some of the path had eroded away, no doubt after the recent heavy rains. These rains however meant that the water appeared to be at a normal levels.
I fished the beat from 7am-9am, fishing Tenkara style with a short (for Tenkara) 10ft rod which was perfect. All fish fell to a GRHE spider variant and all were returned.
I lost count after the first 10 fish or so. The largest two were 10 and 14 inches. The later a cock with kyped jaw and striped flanks, taken in a relatively small pool at the end of the beat! Fantastic!

10 Trout

Rained very heavily, caught 4 nice fish biggest was 3.5lbs, other 3 were all over 2lbs so came away wet but happy.

4 Trout

Blank, I'm afraid. First time on Cadora Backs for me, although I live not far away. This is a most beautiful part of the valley. A warm, rather dark day, with intermittent showers. Conditions should have been perfect. Wading is difficult here, so it's mostly casting from cribs or perched on rocks. It was interesting as the high tide began to affect Cadora Pool, to see how every resident fish in the river began to show for a while. There are plenty of fish of different sizes in the beat, although the ones I saw were coloured. One small salmon seen with a bad case of UDN.

Weather was overcast when I started. Fished for one hour, caught 1 trout 6 inches then the heavens opened and stopped further play. Small fly activity, small number rises, stream looks good, will fish it again.

1 Trout

All fish are up to 5 inches.

4 Trout, 1 Other

4 of the trout were between 10 & 13 inches. 3 of the grayling were also between this size. I also hooked and lost quite a few more.
River low with slow flow and some almost stagnant pools. All fish came to weighted nymphs in the deep pools that did have good flow.
Very overgrown with fallen trees across river which made for slow and difficult progress upstream.
A healthy looking stream nonetheless with obviously a good head of fish - a very enjoyable afternoon.
Spotted a tawny owl and several kingfishers.

10 Trout, 6 Grayling

Better day - river again slightly down. Barbel up to 7lb, chub up to 4lb. All on straight leger and feeder tactics. Absolutely poured down late on but thanks to Colin the resident guide for pointing out the good swims for us.
Overall a lovely stretch of river and countryside but if you are a bit of a river novice like us it can be quite hard at times!- but nonetheless enjoyable.

3 Barbel, 9 Chub