Feedback & Reports

Nothing caught or seen. A wonderful days fishing nonetheless in near perfect conditions.

Rain, rain and more rain. We tried everything with dry fly and nymphs, nothing worked. Almost no activity, only saw two fish rising; and a couple of salmons.
Even when the rain stopped, there was nothing we could do it seemed. We had an ok day, just very disappointing to come back empty handed!

1 fish taken, 2lb brown trout, other fish were small

9 Trout

3 Trout

Delayed departure from SW London meant I didn't get started until 3pm. A few fish rising but managed only a single fish, about 3/4lb, which was returned, on a black gnat .

I have not fished this beat before and found access tricky, possibly because the water level seemed to be high making it difficult to move upstream . I couldn't work out how to fish the upper part of the beat due to the combination of barbed wire and deep water.

1 Trout

Just over a dozen trout between us, mostly small but one good fish of one and a half pounds came to the nymph in shallow fast water, as did most of the other fish. Our enjoyment and fishing was ruined about an hour or so after starting by a pair of ignorant canoeists who decided to paddle straight through the beat in low water conditions. After they had been politely informed that they were trespassing, they refused to acknowledge and then proceeded to beat their paddle blades against the river bed as they made their way downstream - with predictable impact on the quality of the fishing
You look forward to a day's fishing. You pay your £30 a head, and then you get that kind of an experience. They had clearly either not read, or just ignored the advice on the WUF site. Not a great advert for partnership working.
WUF Note: While access arrangements cover the large majority of reasonable canoeists there will always be an element who insist on ignoring them, wherever and however much the arrangements are advertised. It is important to remember that these people would paddle whether there were arrangements in place or not. Such militant attitudes are enforced by the stance of certain canoe organisations who refuse to accept the law that ownership of a section of river includes the water that passes through it. We ask that if anglers are faced with this situation to do as DS & LE did - politely inform them that they are trespassing and if it is an organised group, to take the name of the organisation and pass it on to us.

WUF note: we have made geat strides in managing canoeing and generally there is a reaistic level of compliance. When there are difficulties it invariably centres around people who enjoy looking for trouble, such as experienced here. Their behavoir is inexcusable

15 Trout

Late to river. Just 3 hours fishing. Bit of a walk to the river but a rewarding bit river.

3 Trout

goldhead nymph

2 Trout

River low but v clear. Cold biting wind and persistent rain all morning but eased a little in the afternoon.
Trout taken upstream nymphing (x2) on silver size 16 perdigon, downstream nymphing (x2) olive bead head nymph and two others. Some salmon parr too. All in all, a satisfactory day . improved by judiciously timed cups of tea and the odd fish or two.

6 Trout

Lovely day. Fished hard from 10am to 7pm but didn't get a bite! Tried everything I could think of: nymph, dry, duo, streamer but to no avail I'm afraid. Plenty of trout rising, though, so I can only put my lack of success down to a problem with my rod! Plenty of fly life about; tried to match small olives but the trout not interested. Water levels low.
Access better than expected (from previous feedback) and generally no problem getting into the river although upper end of the beat a little easier. Lovely scenery and great to be there for the day. Thank to WUF.