Feedback & Reports

We became just two anglers very late in the planning of this trip. Started the first morning looking at beats 4-6. Spent a good couple of hours walking the starch having not seen it before. With very low water levels, choice of swims was not fantastic considering the size of the section. We chose poorly and fished in the deeper pools of beat 4 for the first few hours and moved onto fish in the afternoon in beat 5 in faster shallower water. Whist producing fish it also proved quite snaggy. Fished the same beat the following morning but waited until lunchtime for a bite. Left for the last few hours on bet two upstream from the Boat Inn pub but on the other bank. Ended bite less. Conditions far from ideal, very low, slow and very bright did not help with location. 5 barbel landed, sadly similar numbers lost.

5 Barbel

Stayed at Priory. Lots of stairs and quite steep but otherwise fine. Handy for walking to the beat. Due to age and cooked breakfasts, didn't walk to beat until around 08:30. Paperwork checked by game keeper which was good. Had a good chat with ghillie from beat below. Weather glorious and food and the Butty Bach in the Millrace superb. Just needed a days rain a couple of days before we came?

4 Barbel

Low water and bright sun all day but still managed to take fish up to 12 inches throughout the day. Excellent fishing. I can not wait to return.

8 Grayling

What a day! Up to 11.30am I caught only one chub then decided to change location. Feeding regularly the first barbel came at 12.30am after which I had steady takes. The biggest barbel was 12lb, the biggest I have caught in my life. What tactics? It will be my sweet secret. A great beat well maintained.

14 Barbel, 6 Chub

8 Trout

A beautiful late September day and a joy to be out fishing. Feeder and float fishing for coarse species. River very low and clear. Fish fed sporadically and the 6lb barbel was a bonus late in the day.

1 Barbel, 9 Chub

10 small trout and salmon parr. Missed a couple of good trout. Saw two highly coloured salmon, no sign of any fresh fish in exceptionally low water.

Water very low, fishing was spoilt by uncontrollable anglers with music, fires and noise. We packed up and went home after 21/2 hours

After two somewhat difficult days on Lower Hill Court, Sunday saw our party of four rods arrive at Wyastone Leys. Having fished the stretch before, I was looking forward to getting in to the top swims by boys rock where I knew from previous visits the water was relatively deep. Despite this, the clear and low conditions conspired against us again. Two rods attempted some trotting, though this only saw minute dace and chublets, all minnow sized, attacking the bait. With a long drive ahead, these two rods packed up around lunchtime and headed home.
The other two rods stuck to their guns (and feeders/ groundbait etc) in the boys rock swim. One rod managed an eel fairly early on, the other managed one barbel (probably 5lb, not weighed) around 2pm. Clear bites? We probably had three or four between us. In the early part of the day we received lots of very tiny pulls and plucks... though given the fact that these only came to meat baits we tended to put it down to eels, or maybe chub. Anyway, after the excitement of our one barbel the swim went completely dead. We stuck it out into the late afternoon, but having been deceived into thinking there would be some kind of barbel "witching hour" the previous two days and finding out that there was no such thing, we decided to call it a day around 6pm - again, a fair drive home looming helped that decision along.
So all in all, a somewhat disappointing return in terms of catching. However, as always - this beautiful part of the world can make even the toughest day's fishing a wonderful thing, so much so that the majority of the conversation in the car on the way home centered around when we'd come next. Obviously that will depend on conditions improving, lets hope we get some rain soon.
Thanks very much to all at WUF for wonderful service with booking, access, directions etc. We'll be back!!

1 Barbel, 1 Other

I have never seen the river so low and clear...tried our best but only 3 Chub to show for it

3 Chub