Feedback & Reports

5 barbel to 1 of 3 anglers in the party. All barbel were small in the 1 to 1 and half pound bracket. Chub also up to 4lbs or so and an eel. River low and slow

5 Barbel, 6 Chub, 1 Other

Great to be back on the beautiful River Wye. Fished from dawn til dusk for (insert made up number here) fish, mainly chub with one barbel.

Oh, I did catch an eel. It was bright green.

Bizarrely, started the day off with "Macarana" as an earworm and despite trying to sing every song I know from The Jam it would not go away. And now you have it. You're welcome.

Anyway, camped out at first light on the famous "Steps" peg and after getting over the disappointment of not seeing a picture of H, soon settled into a groove. I hoodwinked Chub of various sizes with my tactical nous, including one warrior who I may have caught more than once. I say that as we exchanged a knowing glance as he slid into the net for the second, maybe third, time and by the fourth time we were at that "kuh, what are the chances?" stage of embarrassing encounters.

All fish were in good nick, except one who looked like he'd just come off the set of the River Wye reboot of Rocky. I called him Chubby Balbao.

"Heyyyy Macarana.... ay ay"

Baits used were pellets, meat, corn and mouldy boilies I found in the shed whereas I had a Tesco Meal Deal, Ginsters Buffet Bar and an entire multipack of Monster Munch.

River was low and slow, and bank erosion in the bottom field meant access was only ok if you had rock climbing gear or a jetpack.

The first field has zero access to the river - I mean like none. Zilch. The entire bank is like Terry Waites allotment.

Note to WTF Foundation - buy some strimmers.

I left a happy man as I headed off in the dark past the graveyard. I'm sure that's where they filmed the Thriller video...

1 Barbel, 17 Chub, 1 Other

Overcast day without the heat of yesterday. Found the fish in the faster water towards the bottom end of the beat. Dog pegs and rope needed for some of the swims.

4 Barbel, 2 Chub

Fished bottom peg on left hand bank. Rain made bank very slippy. Banks are very steep on left bank. Better suited to getting down into water really. Right hand bank has more accessible pegs. Had 6 chub out just under 5lb and painfully lost 2 barbel before 7:30am. Before it went quite for a couple of hours. Changed bait from bloodworm barbel pellets to meat and started catching again. Old reliable worm also caught me a couple of chub. As did halibut pellets on hair. As I always say, Chub and barbel are not fussy and will take pretty much anything if you find them. Only fished until 2 pm and thy were still biting. Finished off with 14 chub an lost a few. Will return there’s plenty of fish on this stretch.

14 Chub

6 Barbel

Return visit with some heavier nymphs, this proved more successful (although I caught one less trout than last time) in terms of contacting fish. I managed 3 lovely trout to about 10" but lost 7 others including a really good fish with barbless hooks giving the fish a fair chance - that's my excuse anyway. All fish on tungsten grhe.

3 Trout

Evening visit all fish to a nymph fished duo. Very few Mayfly and no rises seen.

5 Trout, 1 Grayling

1 Trout, 1 Barbel, 20 Chub

1 Chub

Really nice beat with great access and well cut swims, fishing wasn't the best partly due to low river level and recent heat.
I waded most of the day and caught 35-40 small dace and chub, lost a good barbel at the net as well. SM visited quite a few swims and caught 2 nice chub for his efforts all the fish came from the weir area.

2 Chub, 35 Other