Feedback & Reports

Beautiful beat all to ourselves, huge Mayfly hatches.
About a dozen WBT caught to about 10 inches.

17 trought caught, mostly on Elk hair caddis types. All returned

Despite good conditions fishing was not easy - a couple of trout caught during the day both on a PT nymph. Both fish just under a pound.

Fished the river Usk again, this time further upstream at Penpont. What a difference. River in excellent condition but a severe absence of fish. Terry did manage to catch 3 small WBT . I did not get even a single take all day. Tried every trick in the book to no avail. Another angler who fishes here a lot and gave me some great advice on how to fish this stretch, many thanks for that, he fared only slightly better by taking 2 very small WBT very early in the day and then blanked right up into the evening when we left at 9pm. Don't know if he had any fish after this. Goodness knows what had happened to the fishing compared to what we were told it was like the week before. ( It's always good the week before or the week after we leave it seems!!! or so we are told) All the weekend rain probably caused the change although the river looked in perfect form. Guess the fish had gone away for the Jubilee celebrations and had not yet returned!!!! Ho Hum.

Salmon nil, shad x2 ( returned) flying C.

Apologies for the tardiness of this return. Had escaped London and the tediousness of the Jubilee celebrations for a week in Wales with the family. At very short notice Alyson managed to get me a rod on the beautiful Rectory beat and was most helpful in directing me to the booking office to collect beat maps and information. The Wye can at first be a daunting task for the fisherman (I usually fish the smaller Usk) but the beat information supplied was extremely detailed with hotspots, notspots and dangers clearly indicated. Because of this I always felt "in with a sniff" and although the fish were not co-operative that day other than one possible pull this info acted as a virtual ghillie and made me feel if I was fishing with an unusual degree of confidence, if not any actual competence. The beat itself is arguably the most 'complete' section of the Wye I have fished with a wide variety of water and relatively straightforward to fish in low-medium water conditions. Particular stretches of note include all sections of the The Rock Pool, The Bridge Pool, just upstream of and through the Mill Stream to the Rectory pool itself. Weather ran the whole gamut of optimistically overcast to hopelessly but gloriously sunny and it was a great place to while away a day on the water. I will definitely be back.

River high, flowing very fast and murky. Heavy rain! Good conditions for a first timer!!!! Only waded knee deep as I was a bit intimidated by the speed and height of the water. Fished for three hours but ...... caught a small brownie of 6 inches on a olive nymph and another about nine inches on an Adams dry. Both returned. So all in all had a great time.
Thanks W&U Foundation.

A delightful little stream with many interesting pools and riffles. The total catch in hot sunshine for 2 rods was 6 trout in the 7-10 inch bracket, but many more missed or shed the hook. There was an incident half way up the beat where the house owner on the right hand bank insisted that we had no right to wade up the river, so we moved up two fields on the right bank before resuming fishing.

Another very attractive beat, slightly easier to fish than most of the upper Monnow tributaries. It was even possible to overhead cast in some places. Our total catch for another day of hot sunshine and little cloud cover was 18 trout for 2 rods, with two trout of about 1lb apiece. The day was slightly marred when 3 other anglers appeared on the beat, none of whom seemed to have much understanding of angling etiquette. I would guess that they did not put any vouchers in the box and they vanished after about 1 hour. There was a good Mayfly hatch and about half our catch was taken on various Mayfly patterns.

Superb day, 8 brown trout with the biggest going just over 1lb. Plenty of fly life and rising fish, the difficult wading on the beat only added to the fun even if it made getting a fly out to cover a rise a tad difficult.