Feedback & Reports

First time to explore this beat. Access to certain areas is well documented in several other reports so suffice to say, the wood is not for the faint hearted. With the coloured river combining with the overcast morning, conditions looked promising but the day turned out to be challenging from both a physical and fish point of view.
Little interest shown in feeder / pellet, but a switch to free-lined meat paid immediate dividends with some very nice Chub on consecutive casts.
As a colder breeze turned up in the afternoon, the Barbel remained elusive but perseverance ultimately paid off with a magnificent personal-best Chub of 5lb 4oz. Another memorable day on a wonderful river, with Kingfishers and Wagtails replaced by numerous Bats as I left.

4 Chub

Great days sport. Barbel caught from top meadow and from woods. All in 6-8lb bracket. Feeder tactics with pellets proved successful.

18 Barbel, 16 Chub

River was a little higher than our previous visit due to heavy rain over the last few days. Started off in the woods. Proved to be nearly unfishable due to the amount of weed and debris floating down causing us to lose a few sets of tackle and constantly snagging our rigs. We did manage one barbel but by late morning we gave up and moved to the top field where we stayed for the rest of the day. Here we managed to catch 7 Barbel to 10lb and 2 Chub to 4lb. We had to fish close in due to weed and all the fish fell to usual baits. Quite hard going but all in all a good days fishing in the end!

8 Barbel, 2 Chub

We fished the top field, had 5 Barbel to 9lb and 2 Chub. Walked down to the wooded section and to the rocks without tackle but decided not worth the risk with the heavy rain making the path very slippery.

5 Barbel, 2 Chub

Just fished for the morning by the hut - no bites on meat or pellet. Very busy on the opposite bank, I might be old fashioned, but I thought that the mid-point of the river marked the swim when somebody is fishing from the opposite bank, but not on this beat...
WUF Note: Etiquette aside, the legal position on river fisheries is that you are not allowed to wade beyond the mid point of the river. Doing so constitutes a trespass.

It was a real pleasure to fish this beat. RB fished the top meadow all day and caught 1 barbel in the evening. RW fished from the rocks in the woods to begin with, but it proved to be a tackle graveyard. The one barbel hooked here resulted in a cut off on a snag, so a move was called for to the lower meadows. 4 barbel to 8lb 3 oz were caught before the light started to fade.
Highlights of the day were several sightings of a large dog otter, and also a couple of young otters playing and squabbling noisily below the woods.

5 Barbel

As this was a first visit to this beat, tried a number of different places: firstly on the section downstream of the woods and then towards the end of the day, in the woods, by the large rocks just upstream of the Froth Hole.
Fished with feeder (marine Halibut and pellets) and halibut bead for an end bait + a proprietary, strong-smelling paste (Ambush from Severn Valley) that I was trying for the first time .
Didn't have a single bite. Don't know whether this was to do with the bright, sunny weather, water temperature (it was cold) or my own lack of experience. Lovely day on the river though.

Very slow morning in difficult conditions. Low river, bright sunshine and brisk north-easterlies are not great for barbel fishing! Lost the will to live at lunchtime, but will no doubt be back to fish some of the pools in the woods again at some point.

A gorgeous day on the river, slow till the afternoon. Barbel on meat and pellet from top and bottom meadow, Chub from wooded area on meat. Best Barbel 1 x 9lb. 1 x 9.4lb.
1 x 10.6lb (2 fish for 20lb.well done Wilf)!! Best Chub 1 x 3.12lb. 1 x 4.6lb. 1 x 4.8lb, which he thought was a Barbel(So did I)!!
Disappointing to see metal food containers & drink cans in the wooded area, come on guys, you will be the first to moan if it's closed to coarse fishing. An Otter and a couple of Cormorants in the bottom of wooded area.

6 Barbel, 4 Chub

A very easy beat to find with the directions given. I opted to head straight to the woods which was an easy walk in the dry conditions. I am glad I read a report suggesting not to take a chair! Plenty of water to chose from, I found a swim with space to set up. Bites came quickly and I soon had a couple of chub both of around 3-4lb taken on luncheon meat. I explored a few more swims in the lower field but with the bright sunshine I headed back to the woods which offered shade over the river. I missed a lot of bites but managed a few more good sized chub. I didn't locate the barbel this time and I ran out of time to explore the top fields. Not a bad beat for an amateur such as myself and would consider going back. There were a few anglers on the other side and a handful of canoes drifting down but caused no issues at all.

6 Chub