Feedback & Reports

Arrived mid morning, weather very hot and sunny, the river was very low and clear. Spent an hour exploring the river, as previous people have commented many areas are over grown and it's difficult to get to the river.

I fish three different swims through out the day in the field below the orchard. Caught a 6lb 5oz Barbel first cast (on luncheon meat), I then had to wait until mid afternoon before another barbel around 5lb arrived (caught on 10mm boilie). As the sun went down the fish started to feed, I finished up with seven Barbel (best 8lb 12oz) and one chub. I caught fish on meat, boilie and pellet, overall a very enjoyable day.

The scenery on this stretch is probably the best i have seen on the Wye (complete with Cider trees). 3 Rods fished the lower section caught 5 Barbel & 1 Chub on pellet & paste! Very hot conditions but one of our party decided to step into the river for a quick unexpected dip up to his waist (look out for those piles of leaves pretending to be dry land). Think he had been too close to the Cider trees!! Barbel ranged from 7lb to 9lb.

Slow start until we moved pegs - then caught 8 barbel to around 7lbs. Smashing beat and good advice from WUF on location.

Tricky day with bright sunshine and clearing water. Me and a friend fished in the lower field catching 5 Barbel between us and a nice chub just under 5lb.

4 barbel and 1 chub.

The river was up and well coloured. There was lots of surface weed coming down, which caused some problems when fishing mid-stream or the far bank. Nevertheless 2 rods landed 6 barbel (inc two of 7lb) and 3 chub, best 5lb on pellet and sweetcorn. Also three barbel were lost in a very fast, weedy swim before we started to fish the slower water at the near bank where all our fish were landed.

Started the day at lower end of beat. As others have said much of this beat is totally inaccessible due to steep and overgrown banks. 5 barbel caught by 3 rods best fish just over 8lb. River up slightly but no weed problems here. (is this because we are above Hereford??)

Did a check on the beat on Sunday evening - it was low and gin clear. Spotted lots of fish before we left and got a good feeling about the day ahead.
Arrived at 6am, what a difference. Gone was the gin to be replaced by chocolate. My heart sank as we sat up our rods. A whole tree drifted past followed by clumps of weed and branches of all sizes. We started off next to the car park as it still looked fishy, but the debris being washed down made it almost impossible to keep a bait static. Plan B - we went past the orchard to the open field and tried to find slower stretches. 2 hours in Tom (river virgin) hooked into a barbel that got off but it lifted the mood. Half an hour later a shout from Tom - I helped him net his first ever barbel at 6 1/2lb, he was well chuffed. I found a gap between 2 overhanging trees and found chub and dace providing good sport. The largest chub was about 4lb and in good nick. It went dead about 3pm so we went back to the swim we tried in the morning and eventually Darren got a fish - a lovely chub of about 3 1/2lb but he was still mad about missing a brilliant bite that nearly pulled his rod in.
It was about 7.30 and on my last cast I hooked into a barbel. I called it a day after netting an 8 1/2lb fish which fought like mad in the fast water. Could have fished on but had a 4 hour drive back and we thought we'd finish on a high and build up the antisipation for next visit.
Great stretch of river. Will be back and Tom is now no longer a muddy puddle man - it's rivers all the way. Thanks WUF.

Bright sun shine & a low river meant it was going to be a hard day. Morning - 2 rods fishing top meadow on the island, one on the feeder one on the float. The feeder rod had a nil catch, with plenty of dace and chub on the float. Third rod went roving middle meadow.
1pm - 5pm, 3 rods in middle meadow, one small barbel and 3 chub on pellet for one rod. Lots of small dace, chublets and roach on maggots for the other two rods.
5pm walk back to top meadow, 3 rods in one swim for a chat and coffee thinking of going due to no sign of fish and poor river condisions. 6pm and at last some cloud cover - what a difference. Finished fishing at 8pm with 3 rods casting all over the river taking a total of 20 barbel and 4 chub.

What an end to the day. My best fishing experience ever. Sugwas is a lovely beat - we didnt see a soul all day. Can't wait until How Caple Court next weekend.

1st time on this beat and have to say we were dissapointed with the limited number of swims on the middle/top of this beat especially the top where fighing our way through the woods trying to find pegs wasted a lot of fishing time. It wouldn't take a lot of work to improve this area, also, re a previous comment that there are a couple of cracking pegs screaming to be opened up in the orchard.
The lower end of this beat presents much more fishable river with some really nice swims and once we located the fish we managed to catch 35 Barbel and 10 Chub with the biggest Barbel going to around 8lb.
We would definatley fish this beat again, we just hope the WUF listen to ours and previous comments about limited swims and carry out some work on the top end of this beat as it would change it from a good beat to an excellent beat.
Directions and access to the beat spot on and no problems encountered with the local livestock !
Thanks.
WUF Note: Clearance work is due on this fishery in October under our HARP project.