Feedback & Reports

First visit to this brook. On Arrival I was surprised by two things. The amount of boar activity and also how private and secluded the beat feels even though there is a footpath alongside it.

Fished the duo for the whole session but strangely the fish would only touch a pheasant tail nymph over a hares ear. As midday approached takes moved from the nymph to the dry. Most likely lies held at least one trout to the hook and some even more. The water was clear enough in places that trout could be stalked too.

Only the occasional rise was seen as a trickle of small olives hatched in the warmer spells of the day.

Should've had at least double this number of trout but these fish hit hard and fast and fight all the same. A few better fish over powered my two weight set up and found the trees roots before I could impose control over the fight. A brilliant stretch I can't wait to visit again!

14 Trout

A cloudy but fairly war day, with little wind. Caught six brownie, five of which were caught on the dry fly. Missed lots of other takes, although the largest 11 inch fish taken on the nymph. Very pleasant afternoon, with quite a bit of wild life. Saw deer, my first kingfisher this season and unusually a Mandarin Duck!

6 Trout

stream virtually clear of all fallen trees which made fishing very easy. I take it a work party has been out? stream looks great now. water on the low side and gin clear so spooked a lot of fish getting into position. not many rises so opted for size 20 - 1.5mm bead head nymph and hooked well over 20 with only about a dozen coming to hand. nice couple of hours

11 Trout

11 x trout 6-10 inches, size 16 Goldbead Hare's Ear nymph. On a warm and cloudy morning, I was for some reason determined that dry fly was going to work. So I wasted the whole bottom half of the beat with nothing seen, nothing risen. Eventually I got the message - as soon as I put a nymph on, I began to catch fish.

11 Trout

There are certainly quite a few fish in these Forest of Dean streams. All bar one caught on the dink end of duo, but having an indicator dry definitely helps in reacting to takes. Not sure I'd have caught anything like as many without it - and one nice fish did take the klink! All 6-10", great fun. And in today's conditions (light rain off and on, constant cloud cover, bit chilly) hardly any people on footpath and no dogs!!!

24 Trout

Two hours on a lovely warm Friday afternoon was better spent on this little brook in the Forest than at work - very glad I bunked off. I've never fished these streams so early in the season but was encouraged by the warmth and reports of others. It was still a bit early for dries and almost everything came to a small PTN, but I was treated to a small trout leaping bodily out of the water to take a small olive dry about half-way down the beat.
Most of the runs in the narrower parts were full of fish and I must have had thirty or more pulls and brief struggles; while the wider (all relative, of course) sections seemed to be empty. Six trout made it into my hand, from 5-7" - I did see a couple of much nicer looking fish in the flat above the weir, but they were pretty quickly spooked.

6 Trout

Quick hour or two produced 4 fish to 6". Two from the weird pool. Gold headed nymphs did the trick.

4 Trout

11 x trout 6-9 inches, Goldbead Hare's Ear. A very nice morning with, like yesterday, the trout in surprisingly good condition and already forward in feeding positions in the runs. However, The trip was rather spoiled art the end by finding a couple of travelling folk engaged in bait fishing from the new footpath. They didn't want to leave and their language was colourful to put it mildly, but they did finally decamp when I made the calls to the EA and police. EA will keep an eye on the area.

11 Trout

Having fished Bideford in a couple of hours, I thought I could have a go at Cannop and still be home by lunchtime and I was right - with the water at this level, much of the beat isn't really likely to produce fish, at least not without angling ability beyond mine. That said, Cannop is a little more open than Bideford generally and there were sections where a cast was possible and some deeper channels, and fish resulted. I was more fortunate than previous rods in that I met only one family with a dog and they both kept the dog away from the water and instructed their small child not to throw things into it (although a stretch above them was obviously coloured up, I assume because the dog had indeed had a dip). Even more remarkably I managed two trout in one cast - fishing duo, lifted when I saw the dry being taken and found one attached to the nymph as well. A first for me. The weir had barely a trickle of water coming over it and the pool beneath only produced a healthy looking roach.

7 Trout, 1 Other