Feedback & Reports

Arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed and headed for the rocks. We set up and had a quick chat, feeder method and pellets. JT cast in and sat down but before he'd added weight to his chair, the rod accelerated towards the river, his first barbel about 8lb.
Before I cast in, he was into his second, about the same size. We both fished there for a few hours, a few bites and lost fish on the rocks, JT lost a very big fish!
Decided to head down to the shallows by the cattle drink, a great move, I caught a nice barbel about 7lb and JT continued catching, his best 10lb. This is a great swim but hard difficult with all the weed near side.
Later in the afternoon we headed back to the Rocks. JT sat down and literally while he was saying "Well it is not the same as last time his rod bent over and he was into his 7th barbel.
After an hour, he moved down stream to an adjacent peg, I adjusted my position and straight away hooked into a very big fish, unfortunately the fish powered towards me and my line snapped, 10lb line, powerful barbel rod, I was gutted.
Then ...... 20 mins later I had another bite just as JT had called asking how I was getting on. It was a very big fish, it powered to the centre of the river to my relief, I adjusted the drag to allow it to gently fight me, after about 10 minutes it showed itself, it was by far the biggest barbel I have seen, probably not for a lot of other fisherman, but it weighed in at just over 14lb. I had a photo taken. It was spectacular. I called JT back to fish the spot wanting him to catch a river monster, I moved and changed bait and cast out, laid my rod against the rod rest and turned to speak to JT, Then he said "Your Rod!" I caught it in midair, another 10lb Barbel.
A fantastic beat that you have to wander about on. It fishes well in low water conditions and there are some big fish in this beat!
Thank you to the WUF a great section of the River, vibrant with Salmon and big Pike but some really beautiful Barbel. Can't wait till we return

10 Barbel

A difficult day with very few bites. Fished hallibut pellets of all sizes and paste using standard feeder method. I started at first light in wood crib and did not have single bite in 5 hours so moved swims further down. Regular feeding and persistance only produced 3 chub up to 3lb. I packed up at 7.30pm so not sure if fish would have fed later, but suspect they are probably holed up in deeper water due to hot bright conditions and low water. I will be back soon however, maybe after some rain.

3 Chub

Starting from the bottom of the beat at 4.30pm I reached Mallhollam Bridge at 9.30pm, so fading light prevented me reaching the top end. This is a long beat, quite narrow in parts with an intriguing mix of environments. I wouldn’t want to work it with a rod much longer than 6’6”. The fishing was slow to start with, then out of curiosity I tried a size 14 Black Beetle. An enjoyable and rewarding couple of hours followed with 12 fish to the hand and many more lost or missed. Ranging in size from 5” to 10” all were healthy, beautifully coloured brown trout.

12 Trout

This was a return visit after fishing there Sunday when the road was closed and we did an enormous detour. We eventually started at four o clock and fished till dark. I had five barbel fairly quickly but then the action stopped. PB waited three hours before any action then had three barbel to 8lb 12oz and three chub with a best of 4lb 12oz. Not as good as Sunday but once again a thoroughly enjoyable session on a lovely stretch of river in a lovely area of the country. All caught on robin red pellet.

Fished from 5am. Water the clearest I have seen this year for this beat so fished fly for most of day. Besides one fish showing at rock above the top crib nothing to report. The water colour looked a bit murky in afternoon as temperatures reached uncomfortable levels, both for me and probably the salmon as well.

Fly fishing, slow sink line and floating line. Bibio caught when wave was big.

4 Trout

3 small trout, all caught on a nymph. All released.

3 Trout

Nice day, most of the fish came in the late afternoon/evening session. Also caught a large eel.

7 Barbel, 2 Chub, 1 Other

River very low and clear. Made catching unlikely but did not spoil another fine day out on the Wye.

1 Barbel, 5 Chub

Another great day. Lost count of chub. 4 barbel caught long-trotting at far end of beat. Sweetcorn used as bait. Many chub caught.
Other method was swim feeder with 2 foot hooklink. 10mm boilies on hair.

14 Barbel, 20 Chub