Feedback & Reports

Having fished Whitehouse Fishery the previous day and coming home extremely disappointed we were expecting a far better experience at Thomas Wood having watched the promotional video on access to the fishery and pegs. We arrived at the fishery entrance and made our way down the steep hill to the first parking area and parked in the first parking spot on the bend. We walked towards the upstream limit, again to our amazement no obvious pegs were identified, all were completely overgrown with steep banks, and there was no clue or evidence where access points were. No worn track or flattened grass to even indicate where access was achievable. We found one good peg with an outcrop of rocks that one person could if reasonably fit navigate the steep bank, (No ledges cut in to assist access) and comfortably fish. There was a large area of gravel where the river ran across shallows, that, at normal river level, may have been a good option, but it was so shallow even the armada of canoes and paddle boarders were grounding on the rocks , so clearly not an option on our visit.

The only other peg we identified was occupied with rough campers, who were camped in the woodland behind the track having breakfast with their canoe conveniently tied up on the rocky outcrop ,with cooking equipment and rucksacks. They were completely oblivious to the fact they were occupying one of only 3 accessible points to fish from on the river ..and made no effort to apologise “You really couldn’t make this up”…! We eventually turned about and made our way to the downstream limit where we walked past what appeared to resemble peg locations, but again completely overgrown with balsam and nettles and 10ft steep bank to the river. We found on a large bend almost at the end of what we believed was the limit of the fishery a sandy bank where we decided to fish from . From the minute we started fishing there was a continuous, never-ending flotilla of canoes and paddle boards travelling past which made fishing virtually impossible. Between the two of us we caught one eel, a few small Chub and one very small Barbel, but had little indication all day that fish were feeding. With so few obvious pegs available to fish and such high banks without having knowledge or a landscape gardening team equipped with powerful strimming equipment you would be better off looking at other options. The track back up to the main gate is extremely steep but our Ford Transit custom van managed to get up steadily in 1st gear, but it was very dry. I have read reports of vehicles struggling once the road is wet, this wouldn't surprise me , and where possible I would opt for a 4x4 to be on the safe side.
Overall , beautiful location, stunning scenery , but access to good pegs is shocking.....Extremely disappointed and wont be rushing back.

1 Barbel, 4 Chub

3 Trout

1 Trout

1 Trout

Nice couple of hours on the river. Float fished bread and meat.

15 Chub

Fished below cronkley bridge . About a half mile down then worked back up . Upstream wind very mild . Fished mainly dry fly . Good day lots of fish about …some nice ones too !

18 Trout

Good fishing, all on spam rolling in the fast water at the croy

5 Chub

4 Trout

Water clear and very very low! Barbel 5lb came on cage feeder.
All the chub gave us great battles heading for the streamer weed which was good to see.
Being a Saturday we had what seemed to be hundreds of canoes so packed up at around 3.

1 Barbel, 14 Chub

2 barbel at 6 and 2lb, the entrance hole has been filled in and some work has been done on the pegs near the pump.

2 Barbel, 1 Chub