Feedback & Reports

A very enjoyable day, landed 3 barbel to 10lb lost another 2 ,meat and pellet tactics.

3 Barbel

Salmon Fly used to catch the Salmon was a Blue Charm size 6 double on a sink tip line in The Vanstone Pool. Salmon caught was approximately 7/8lb.
River conditions were around 1' 8" fairly clear water.
Weather conditions dry, mild and overcast with odd sunny spells around 15degsC. Chub caught in Maddox was approximately 4lb with an Allys Shrimp fly size 6 double.

1 Salmon, 1 Chub

Did not fish. Viewed the river at Irfon Bridge Road. It was high and cocoa coloured. The Wye in Builth car park was also high and coloured. The rain of the previous two days had affected the rivers. I drove up to Rhayader, bought a ticket at the newsagents and fished the River Elan in splendid condition and caught.

I caught 4 fish with worm. Good day, really enjoyed it, chatted to other anglers, they were having a good day too.

4 Trout

Unfortunately my visit coincided with the first heavy rain of the autumn which brought the river level up by a couple of feet. The river was having a flush through so was full of rubbish. I found a fishable swim on beat 5/6 and managed a few nice Chub to 4ib 2oz. No barbel today.

4 Chub

Wash off due to heavy rain, but we didn't have to worry as we received an excellent response from the Wye and Usk team when we booked again at a later date.

River rose rapidly in the afternoon and covered the croys. Lots of weed coming down so abandoned search for barbel.

4 Barbel, 3 Chub

Had problems finding river until helpful farmer explained I had the map upside down. Not many accessable swims but did manage to catch a 10lb 3oz barbel.

2 Barbel, 2 Chub

After 2 days of heavy rain the river was up about 3ft and colored, it probably would have qualified for a wash off.
However the level was dropping and clearing, so with a little optimism I fished the stretch. The river was definitely in flood. But it was fishable and there were good numbers of Caperer on the bank side vegetation, though few ventured out on to the water. Most of the runs were buried under the water, although the tails of the pools provided some hope, but no fish.
The best way to learn a river is to fish it in all conditions. It is a lovely looking stretch and on that I look forward to seeing in slightly better conditions.

Arrived at 8am and decided to walk the beat and put a bit of hemp in. The bottom end looked really good but thought we would work down from hut and finish there in evening. It was still low but looked very fishy. Tom caught 2 chub in first few casts on pellet and we thought we had made good move starting here. I fished more downstream, 3/4 of the way across and had 4 barbel to about 7lb before 11ish. Mark struggled as this was 1st time on Wye and isn't that used to river fishing but seemed to enjoying himself. I lost a fish before lunch but it didn't feel like a barbel or chub - it straighted my hook. I don't know of any carp but that's what it felt like.
We started moving downstream and got to bottom corner at 2ish. Tom had a 4.5lb chub in great nick. I caught 3 chub and 2 barbel before we stopped for food. After our break we noticed a the river rising quite quickly and lots of weed and debris coming down making it very hard to fish. We got to bottom end which was nigh on impossible to fish because of the weed. I got 1 barbel and 1 chub before we all gave it up as a bad job. The river rose so quickly it had gone over the spots we fished off in the morning. We were gutted at not starting at bottom as this seems to be the hotspot but to be honest, I prefer to work hard for a fish and we did that. We had told Mark we were saving the best swims till last but we never got to them as we were packing up we wern't holding out much hope for Thursday on Sugwas Court. All the fish were caught on pellet except 1 chub which fell to cheese paste. To be continued....

7 Barbel, 7 Chub