Feedback & Reports

Seventeen barbel and three chub caught throughout the afternoon with five fish lost. The river was very low and clear and access around the orchard had only two viable swims. With extra water these will not be fishable. Other fields are very open up and down stream but will not suit anglers not wishing to fish near to livestock. There are bulls in all meadows. Nice place though.

2 rods fished 4.30pm - dusk on Thursday 11th and all day Friday 12th, one a relatively experienced Barbel fisherman and the other hoping to catch his first Barbel. On Thursday we caught 17 Chub and 6 Barbel between us - naturally the biggest Barbel at 8:12 fell to the beginner! The fish went really mad for the last hour.

On Friday we caught 18 Chub and 8 Barbel between us - fishing was OK throughout the day, but oddly the river went completely dead from 7.00pm when the full moon rose above the horizon and we didn't get a bite after that point.

3 grilse seen below Chimes beat.
Nil return. Water v low, even after Thursday's torrential rain.

3 Brown Trout 10 " 11½" 12½". Lost 2 others which were also nice fish. All returned.

4 x trout 6-15 inches. This was a surprising day. It started quite dismally with a morning of heavy rain and plenty of wind as well. Why is it that the wind is always, always downstream? And it was cold. "It's hard land up here," said the farmer, and he was right. If you try the Crai in early season it feels as cold as upper Teesdale, which is saying something. (Note to self to pick a day of nice weather next time I fish in the Crai valley). Knowing that a lot of work has gone in to trying to improve this important spawning tributary, I was interested to know what the result would be. I'm aware of at least one party which had a good day here this sring. There seemed to be a reasonable amount of invertebrate life on the river bed. By midday I was rather disappointed with my result, however, what with struggling against the wind, missing small fish and so on. Apart from lots of parr and undersized fish, I had just three 6 inch trout to show for all the work. I was just trying to compose this report in my head when the wind dropped, the sun came out briefly and...out of the blue as it were...a proper trout came up from the depths and went down with the Klinkhammer firmly in its mouth. When the fuss was over it went just over 15.5 inches and I'll send the photo in to the WUF when I unload the camera. Admittedly it had that slightly wolfish, lean-jawed look of the cannibal to it, but at least it took a dry fly!

4 x trout 6-15 inches. This was a surprising day. It started quite dismally with a morning of heavy rain and plenty of wind as well. Why is it that the wind is always, always downstream? And it was cold. "It's hard land up here," said the farmer, and he was right. If you try the Crai in early season it feels as cold as upper Teesdale, which is saying something. (Note to self to pick a day of nice weather next time I fish in the Crai valley). Knowing that a lot of work has gone in to trying to improve this important spawning tributary, I was interested to know what the result would be. I'm aware of at least one party which had a good day here this sring. There seemed to be a reasonable amount of invertebrate life on the river bed. By midday I was rather disappointed with my result, however, what with struggling against the wind, missing small fish and so on. Apart from lots of parr and undersized fish, I had just three 6 inch trout to show for all the work. I was just trying to compose this report in my head when the wind dropped, the sun came out briefly and...out of the blue as it were...a proper trout came up from the depths and went down with the Klinkhammer firmly in its mouth. When the fuss was over it went just over 15.5 inches and I'll send the photo in to the WUF when I unload the camera. Admittedly it had that slightly wolfish, lean-jawed look of the cannibal to it, but at least it took a dry fly!

The day started off really tough with a few fish coming from the streamy runs, as the day progressed and we moved up the river things started to look up. We finished the with 29 fish between us the best two fish being around
1 1/2lb a piece.

9 WBT to 8" all on dry (Adams, Sedge, Klink). Suspect would have been more if I had taken Passport advice and kept to the coppiced section. However, I struggled through pretty dense undergrowth for the morning and caught nothing due mostly to my clumsiness although a startled vixen did a good job of putting the fish down in one pool!

Plonkers with paddles mercifully absent today, just a few good-mannered groups and family crews. Sadly, the fish also went missing. Well no, they were there, safely tucked underneath the bank-to-bank streamer weed festooning the 70 per cent shallows that comprise this beat. It was hot, bright and clear and they would not look at baits on 8lb bs rigs (no point going lower, you simply wouldn't land any barbel hooked). Probably emerged to mop up all my free offerings under cover of darkness, by which time I was struggling manfully up Cardiac Hill to the car, with no barbel and only a smattering of chub of no great size to my credit. Conclusion: Probably a better autumn and winter venue than in this low water spell.

Well, I'm aching today! What a mission this beat is to work out how to navigate the safest and most succesful way - once you have however, this is true wild fishing and very rewarding. An absolutely stunning gorge, with pools, run-offs and step riffles to die for, add to that more brown trout than you could ever imagine existed and you've got a 1st class voucher beat. Caught 8 or so small brown trout and a few salmon par all on tiny Copper John's. The only downside was the very low flow which made things tough. All in all I felt like I was in a scene from Predator or Avatar - a great escape from the world out there and I think any small stream angler should have a go at this beat at least once.