Feedback & Reports

Fished from about 8.30am to about 4pm when the days rain finally started to quickly swell the river, making it necessary to leave quickly. Fished the lower half only, mainly the `gutter' section. Probably had about a dozen in the end. All grayling except 2 small parr. On a tan klinkhammer and grhe bead nymph, NZ style. Most taken on nymph. Biggest a lovely 16-17 inch (1lb 3/4?) with a couple around 14 inch. Rest 7-9 inch. Plenty of missed bobs and pulls and lost fish early on until I got `my eye in'. A great day to christen my new rod. This is the first time I have used booking system and found service very good and efficient.

Summary of a fairly dire weekend's fishing as follows:

Caradoc Fri 10th Sept - 5 barbel (best 7.2)& 2 chub.
Foy Bridge Sat 11th Sept - 3 chub.
Whitehouse Sun 12th Sept - 1 barbel.

It was our first time at Caradoc and we'll definitely return.

It was also our first time at Foy Bridge but we won't be returning! It was very disapointing, this is a single angler beat and we finished up huddled together in the one likely looking swim on the left hand bank. That said I'm sure that we would have had a few more chub if the river hadn't risen and turned the swim into a washing machine as well as making the rest of the stretch virtually unfishable. It was interesting barbel feeding and watching from the right hand end of the bridge before the flood waters came.

We arrived at Whitehouse on Sunday to find the river circa 8ft up and despite fishing hard and adopting a mobile approach we could manage only one fish between us! The two other (very friendly) guys who were on the beat did manage to find the fish though and did very well indeed

No salmon caught although there were several in the beat and some of them appeared larger fish. Just not interested in what I had to offer. This angler is heading in the direction of a salmon blank this season although I'm sure I will not be alone, unfortunately.

Much nicer and quieter beat to be on during a weekday, far too many noisy motorbikes on the Wye Valley road at the W/E.

Our 1st session on Holme Lacy. The beat has good access and with the river being at summer level, there are lots of swims that are comfortable to fish from. I spoke to Colin the bailiff during the week previous to our visit and he was very helpful. We ignored the popular swims at the bottom of the beat and fished the swims over the 1st style.
We finished with 12 Barbel between the 2 rods, to a best of 9lb 4oz, along with dozens of chub and dace (even on the pellet). Thanks again to the Foundation for a superb fishery.

Had early start and found the fishing beat and parking lay-by really easy, took walk along top half of the beat and could really only find one swim to fish as there are no other swims to fish, high banks and full of trees! The only swim I could find which was boys rocks but with not a lot of room and even hard to cast out I might add! With foot of water on I started to fish and landed 5 barbel between 5lb and 9lb loosing 6 (with shake of the head plus loosing lots of terminal tackle), due to the rocks cutting the line and found this swim to be really snaggy with lots of big boulders and weed! Returning back to my car I find a note saying please dont park in this lay-by who left it there I dont know but I think the WUF need to look at this as I parked where instructed to and to be honest I wont be returning back in a hurry on this beat! With lack of swims!

WUF Note: Access is currently much easier from the more open lower end of the fishery. Although some clearance work has already been done at the top end, we will be cutting out further swims this autumn. We are looking into the parking issue.

After driving 90 miles from west Wales I found another angler had booked late the previous night and was in the 'top' swim. So I went and tried 2 swims downstream in amongst the trees. Very tricky to fish and didn't get a bite in 4 hours. Walked down to the end of the first field but could find no other fishable swims. Do not know if there are any swims at the bottom end of fishery? Gary, the other angler, kindly took pity on me, and generously packed up early and let me have a go there. Here I caught 5 barbel and 1 chub but beware this swim eats tackle. Bring loads of spare feeders etc, use 12lb min' line, barbless hooks are a must and when you get a fish on, haul like mad to keep them from shredding the line on the boulders. Packed up after losing 3 sets of tackle in 3 casts! IMPORTANT NOTE: The owners of the house informed me that ONLY 1 CAR is allowed to be parked in the layby at a time. I feel that this venue should be phone bookings only to explain the hazards and limited to 1 booking at a time. Many thanks to Gary the other angler who saved me from a blank day.

**WUF NOTES** The beat description states that the upper car park is for one car only. There are many swims at the lower end of the fishery, not far from the lower car park. WUF will be improving access at the top end of the fishery this autumn.

Nothing caught but probably due to my inexperience of river fishing because conditions appeared perfect. First time I've used the booking system which was very efficient. I shall return!

12 x trout 6-10 inches, numerous parr, 1 x 14 inch grayling. The grayling was above the first falls on the upper part of the beat, which seemed quite interesting if this species is in the process of moving in; grayling are said to be not very good at passing falls and weirs. One heavy trout hooked on a Klinkhammer jumped itself off after a few seonds.

We arrived at the griffin inn at 8.30 for breakfast which was superb! (You must ring first) The river looked
perfect, running at 1ft6in above. As this beat is fly only it makes the method of fishing easy, William and myself fished up to 12.30 with no luck apart from finding that what I thought was a stone in my waders turned out to be a pound coin!(with that sort of luck how could we fail?) We broke off for lunch and headed off to the Wheelwrights Arms in the village (the food is spot-on.) We ended with a trout and and two salmon parr! We saw no salmon, but we had a great day. I know it was only three hours between meals, but William dragged me to the pub, and anyway it was for his birthday!

Eight lovely grayling to 1.5lb all on dry fly. Klinkhamer and olive emerger size 16. Loads of pale wateries hatching off but no interest in my versions of this fly. Later in the day plenty of needle fly coming off but little interest.
A much more intersting beat than Abernant which I fished the day before in high coloured water. Abernant gave similar results in catch numbers with one very nice grayling of 1.75lb but the beat lacked the variety and interest of Doldowlod. No fish killed. Incidentally you are lucky to have such charming ladies in the office, great service and advice.