Feedback & Reports

Arrived at the river at first light. Wasn't an obvious entrance into the wooded area from the car park side so I walked around the woods. Before entering there I walked the length of the beat and only found 2 spots where you can access the river. I would happily clear myself a swim but the river didn't look ideal for barbel anyway.
I entered the woods but left my gear outside and that was a wise move. The woods are very tricky to walk through even without your gear, and again very few places you can access the river, very steep banks which you have no chance of going down or up. As I made my way up river through the woods I could see what can only be described as the perfect low river level barbel swim, but getting down to it was far from perfect. I'm a fit young man and I struggled getting down to the river without my tackle. It was my only hope of a good day so I decided to go back and get my gear and do what I could to get down there.
It was very tricky getting to it with my gear, hit the deck a number of times, literally shed blood to get to it. I was sweating from the heat too so I was relived to get to my swim as I was pretty frustrated by this point and just wanted to sit down and relax, this wasn't to be the case though, started fishing at 7am and by 9am I had 10 barbel. The bait was never in the water more than 2 minutes, spent the whole 2 hours playing fish. After 9am the chub joined the party and they were taking it in turns with the barbel. Into the afternoon the barbel almost completely switched off but the chub clearly wanted to take advantage of that and went nuts. As I'd feel the feeder hit the riverbed on the cast they'd take the hookbait on the drop. Had 3 hours of it.
The barbel moved back in and the chub finally cleared off. Steadily caught barbel after that until I packed up with lots of light to spare to ensure I could make it out of the woods before dark. The woods didn't frustrate me as much after having the best days fishing of my life. There is one bit though we're if you don't grab the rope you're going to tumble straight down into rocks from a very steep drop. You'd be lucky if you didn't bang your head and be the end of you. I just grabbed the rope in time, a real heart in your mouth moment. I not sure what I felt most happy about, an amazing day or managing to get back to the car with just cuts and bruises. The woods did provide good cover for the sun though.
The barbel were all 6-9lb and the chub 3-5lb. 2 of the barbel had other anglers hooks in their mouth, so nice to know I did them a favour by catching them and removing these. What a day in so many ways.

24 Barbel, 32 Chub

Barbel 5lb 9lb 10lb. Chub 4lb 4lb 5lb. Minnow.

3 Barbel, 3 Chub, 1 Other

6 Barbel 10 Chub on pellet and meat. Fish caught in the top field.

6 Barbel, 10 Chub, 1 Other

Started off trotting meat and had a ridiculous number of chub averaging 3-4lb, the biggest of which were easily over the 5lb mark. Switched to feeder tactics for the last few hours taking a few more large chub and several barbel. Had two fish that were pushing towards the 10lb mark. The others were all around 6-7lb. The bites kept coming and in the end we had to force ourselves to leave. Magnificent days fishing.

7 Barbel, 40 Chub

Only fished half a day, great stretch of river with easy access. Other 2 Eels 1LB plus each. Biggest Barbel 7LB 14OZ
Biggest Chub 4LB 7OZ.

4 Barbel, 9 Chub, 2 Other

15 chub and 4 barbel again taken from below the forest almost at the beat limit.

4 Barbel, 15 Chub

5 Barbel, 10 Chub on pellet. Fish caught in the wood.

5 Barbel, 10 Chub

No fish caught.

Just the one barbel today in the blazing heat. Taken from below the woods again fishing to holes in the weed. 5 big chub taken from the same spots.

1 Barbel, 5 Chub

Lovely to be out for the first day of a new season again. River was the lowest I have seen it. Top field section was very slow flowing almost not moving in places. Bit more pace in the bottom two fields which is where most fish came from. Most of fish came to pellet feeder tactics.

10 Barbel, 16 Chub