Feedback & Reports

Difficult day, should have fished better

1 Barbel, 1 Chub

What an amazing place. Waggler fished meat/maggot in fast water until 3pm when the river was shadowed - nothing. Then feeder fished pellet and long hook link and caught 2 chub and a barbel at the end of the fast water. Thank you.

1 Barbel, 2 Chub

Hard day as expected with river low. Fed hemp and caster. Managed two decent chub and lost one barbel to a hook pull. Not many fish showing really either.
A bit of a gripe... I removed a few bits of angling origin litter up the top end, including a discarded barbed hook. One of my chub was gut hooked with someone else's line coming out of it..I ended up cutting the line. Meanwhile my barbless hook had fallen out in the net. I didn't get my ticket checked and I'd be happy to have my gear checked to ensure compliance.
Canoe traffic was light but a party in the afternoon made up for it. I always make myself visible when I see them coming and in the past have had polite canoeists go right over the other side to minimise inconvenience. No such luck. These decided to come towards me a third of the way across. Rising above it I wound in to avoid my line being touched and was ignoring them as they came right in front saying something about "Mr Fisherman" so I suggested they could have gone over the other side. This prompted a comment I didn't hear which was met with laughter before they carried on splashing around, shouting and hooting on top of about 10 quids worth of bait. I assume they had hired them as they looked the canoeing equivalent of "noddies" and hope the hire company can better instill good practice in customers in future. I am sure some canoeists are just oblivious and mean no particular harm but the "we don't care" attitude of this group was frustrating.

2 Chub

River exceptionally low, virtually no flow and clear. Very warm and sunny day. Fished all along the stretch from the rock down to the caravan. No Barbel or Chub activity. The only species willing to oblige were Eels! Avoid luncheon meat unless you wish to catch them by design. All methods and many different baits tried. Quite a lot of Salmon (we think) activity, 4 fish spotted during the day.

3 Other

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

Nice stretch but not many accessible swims/heavy canoe traffic/anglers on opposite bank and river down to 18inches in places made for a tough day. 1 chub fell to trotted sweetcorn but otherwise fruitless.

1 Chub

No fish despite fishing for close to 10 hours each rod.

Mag, feeder, 4' fluorocarbon, small hook, river low, hot, cloudy spells. Barbel up to 8lbs.

3 Barbel

River low, bright, sunny, cloudy spells and brisk wind pm. Feeder, mag. both had barbel up to 8lbs bracket. Some silvers.

3 Barbel

After struggling on a club water for two chub the day before, we were not expecting to fill our boots at Wyastone. GP started the day at the Rocks and managed a Barbel after two hours. I fished below the wires and went through my repertoire of baits (types and sizes), hook length materials and hook sizes. All to no avail. We found hooks, bait and leads /feeders covered in slimy green blanket weed every cast. We later moved to swims nearer the steps but the scorers were not troubled further. I finished the day bite less, no sign even of a chub.
Stunning scenery but we could have enjoyed that free of charge as the dog walkers do.

1 Barbel