Since my last post on pike it has to be said things have been pretty quiet on the pike fishing front. But then very few people have fished. The river conditions until the middle of last week have been difficult with constantly rising and falling water, which peaked at 13ft. So although we have had plenty of water there still has not been a major flood over the road at Lydbrook, which brings huge sighs of relief to the local residents, but is an event which is happening less frequently in the last few years.
My local friends Gareth and George have given the good pike spots a regular going over during the last fortnight. A fish about 20lb and a 15lb from Legg Meadow and a double from the stream mouth at the Tump have been the best. Gareth, not prone to get excited over anything under 30lbs, let on that they lost a pike which was’nt seen and which felt huge in the depths, when the river was around 6-7ft. This is probably the huge fish which was seen by barbel anglers in the autumn and quite likely the 36lb fish caught by George from Little Dean last winter. Rumours have come back to me that this pike was 39lbs – it seems difficult to get exact records of pike weights.
I would say the time is now. After a mild winter there should be some well fed, well conditioned females becoming heavy with spawn. River levels are now back to below 2ft as I write and clear. We have some bookings for pike missions but there are loads of booking opportunities for the rest of this month and February or just book on the day. There is almost cerainly a pike in the Legg Meadow stretch of the Courtfield which is heading for the magic 40lb mark.
The 2011 pike season is now with us. The first movement was on the 31st October when several large pike were seen moving along the Legg Meadow stretch, arguably the Holy Grail of Wye piking. Several smaller pike and fish to15lb have been caught. The 15lb fish caught by friend of Neil Lissaman on Friday 11th November.
Last winter Gareth Hart guided his friend George, and down the lower end of the meadow helped him land a 36lb monster. Gareth has the distinction of “years ago” catching a witnessed 42lb pike from Legg Meadow, possibly the largest pike ever landed on the river by rod and line. Gareth, whom I’ve known for over 30 years, and his friends from Little Dean have quietly fished the “meadow” and many other stretches of the Wye for a lot longer than the piking afficiados and his catches have always been kept quiet from the angling world.
The most famous pike from Legg Meadow was the fish known as Lydia by PAC anglers Rob Shallcroft and Steve Bown. Renowned as the Queen of the Wye, this fish was caught by Ashley Meek in 2005 when she weighed 36lbs. This fish can be seen on the “Courtfield Fishing page” of this site. Subsequently and after many stake outs Steve took Rob to the magic spot, where one late winter’s day Rob caught the magnificent fish when she weighed 33lbs 12ozs.
It is generally thought this fish is no longer alive. Although Steve did not get exact measurements he estimated her length from scaled photographs at 48 – 49 inches. So it is significant that Rudi Lighert’s pike caught in the winter of 2009 at the lower end of Courtfield measured 48 inches. This massive fish was “well below its potential weight and long and lean”.
The question has to be, was Rudi’s fish Lydia and is it the same fish that Gareth Hart caught at 42lbs? Fred Buller’s table for pike length to weight gives the following for a 48 inch pike. The average variation is shown at 39lbs which is the weight of the massive pike which first showed up on the radar at Leggs Meadow. With an extreme expectation of weight at 53.25 lbs and mean of 44.5 lbs it seems to me that these catches, including Gareth’s 42lb pike, do in fact all relate to the same fish, which against the belief of the members of the Pike Angling Club of Great Britain was still alive in 2009. The second question has to be, is George’s fish of last winter an up and coming contender for the Queen of the Wye crown?
| length |
probable common variation (pounds) |
average of probable common variation (pounds) |
probable mean weight (pounds) |
extreme expectation of weight (pounds) |
| 48 |
29.5 to 48.75 |
39.125 |
44.5 |
53.25 |
Over the last decade there has been one and possibly two dead pike recorded as being over 30lbs, suggesting that there are other monsters here and pike in the mid to high twenties are caught annually. Jonathan Wright, guided by Gareth Hart had a fine bag several years ago including a 27lb fish and two other doubles to 16lbs and several good jack pike caught in the swims towards the top end of Leggs Meadow. The late Martin Lane of Lydbrook caught many big pike along the Courtfield beat and fell in to the river in recent times whilst landing a fish in the low to mid twenties. A salmon angler had an 18lb pike this summer fishing the Legg Meadow crib.
If you are a specimen pike angler seeking a big Wye pike then I humbly suggest you give the Courtfield a go this winter. Book as usual for a coarse ticket through the WUF and drop me an email donmacerwright@gmail.com while you’re about it, to plan your trip. If you want to make the added investment for a guide we can probably significantly increase your chances of a lifetime fish.
With up and down flows and some intermittent catches the barbel are still being caught in the Courtfield beat. Christopher Bolter and son on Saturday 5th November, had 8 lovely barbel to 9lb 14oz and lost one or two others fishing no 6 swim The Bay, where two 10s were caught the previous week. David Bolingbroke and friend fishing swims 2 and 3 on Monday 7th November had two good barbel each and David Chesterman had a 10lb7oz and 8.5lb barbel from swim 2 on Saturday 12th November. These are all from Leggs Meadow. The odd barbel is still being caught through the Wood stretch, Tim Lennon catching one on Friday 11th from no 14 swim Big Willow Downstream Swim. Combined with the occasional chub and pike the barbel fishing looks likely to continue while the mild weather lasts, but don’t expect to catch more than a few fish!
I recommend fishermen bring trotting tackle as well to target the chub and dace, which can give fantastic sport in the faster water, particularly along the bankside runs of Wyebank.
Tuesday the 18th October was one of the last days for memorable catches, with Wyebank producing a good bag for Adriano Mercato and friend, including barbel to 8lb plus and chub to 6.25 lbs and Courtfield producing a good bag of barbel and a great get together for Dean Macey, Les Westbeach, Nigel Botherway and Shaun Hodges.
Shaun, the manager of tackle shop Hinders of Swindon took the day with three consecutive ten pound barbel at 10lbs, 10lb 4oz and 10lb 8oz. These were caught on Hinders Blitz boilies wrapped in Blitz paste with Hinders Barbel Bomb in the feeder, proving in Nigel Botherway’s words that Hinders of Swindon “sell the best barbel bait known to man.”
10lb 8oz Barbel
Another beautiful 10lb plus fish
The third of the 10lb plus Barbels
After a fantastic run of doubles over the past few weeks it looks like the barbel fishing is winding down now.
Posted in Barbel, Catch reports, Coarse Fishing, Coarse fish Gallery, Uncategorized (Tags: barbel, coarse fish, Coarse Fishing, courtfield, Dean Macey, Hinders of Swindon, Les Westbeach, Nigel Botherway, Shaun Hodges) | No Comments
After a couple of lean days on Courtfield and Wyebank and difficult conditions with floating weed at the weekend, which gave even the likes of Ali Hamidi a hard time, today has seen a return to some fantastic fishing. First of all though I must mention Stephen Murdoch’s record for a small barbel, which I am sure he will take in the good vein in which it is meant. Fishing yesterday on his 50th birthday in the hope of “just one barbel” he caught his fish, but it was a mere 5″ long making it the smallest barbel of the year!
Today four rods on Courtfield landed more than 20 barbel between them, two only fishing part of the day. These included three 10 pounders and two at 9lbs 15oz. also a 5lb 4oz chub. Fishing today was Jonathan Avery of monster catfish fame, who landed the record 8ft 3″ 245lb catfish in Spain on the 29th September. Jonathan has fished Courtfield several times this season and has had great success on every occasion.
River levels going up and down by around 1.5 to 2ft early in the month helped the flow conditions and allowed for some interesting fishing, as the previous posts have shown. By the end of the month it was starting to heat up again towards the exceptional short heatwave. This heated the water back up a bit with the warm nights keeping temperatures ideal for the barbel to get well back on the feed.
Some superb barbel have been caught on the Courtfield beat with 8 ten pounders and possibly others. Plenty of 9s and other fish spread throughout the range from a few pounds up. The chub fishing was wonderful early in the month and half a dozen 5s, a couple of 6s and one 7 pounder have been reported.
It is quite evident that the barbel in the 8 lb class back in late June, became the 9s in August and are now the 10s, suggesting around 2lbs of growth through the summer. Much depends on the coming winter flood situation. If it is similar to the last two winters I feel we can hope for a spectacular season next year with an excellent stock of fish which could be pushing 12 to 13 lbs by this time next year.
Health is everything and strong lean river barbel are the mark we are looking for. The excesses of ground baiting, leading to overweight fish with compromised fitness, are now behind us. The WUF letting system with minimum pressure is the perfect formula allowing for stocks of barbel to thrive.
The great barbel nursery of the Wye hereabouts is undoubtedly the shallows below Lydbrook as evidenced by the continuing results from Wyebank. These have continued to be spectacular throughout September, with good catches of barbel from 1.5lbs to 9lbs. On the 29th a notable catch was made by Simon Eeles’ 2 rods who apart from catching 5 barbel in the 5 to 8 lb range had 30 in the 1.5 to 3lb range. As well as excellent barbel fishing several chub over 5lbs and a couple over 6lbs have been caught. The potential of Wyebank’s short stretch was highlighted on Monday the 3rd October by Rudi’s 10lb 14oz barbel
All in all a very satisfactory result. There will be some fine pictures coming soon.
Friday the 9th September, proved to be the Red Letter day for three fishermen. In the morning the river had dropped back from the 2ft 6″ of Wednesday evening to a perfect 4″ at 9.30am. I had gone down to Wyebank and saw several small grilse slashing the surface. I raced back and got my fly rod and by 11 o’clock had landed two grilse of about 6lbs and 4.5 lbs and lost another tiny fish maybe 2-3lbs. The fish rose to a cascade fished across the Wyebank run and must have been running fish. The resident cormorant turned up followed by canoes and all went quiet. It was the first time I have ever had two fish in one short session from the beat and it could have been three!
The river then started to rise again midday and was at a foot and coloured by the evening when Colin Tyler fishing number 2 swim in Legg Meadow finished up with 9 barbel to 9.5 and 4 chub to 5lb3oz and Rudi, fishing the evening finished with 6 barbel to 9.75 lbs and a huge bag of chub every cast, the best two weighing 5.75lbs and 5.25lbs. In total 100lbs or more of fish. Truly a Red Letter day for salmon, barbel and chub.
The river was low and clear throughout August . Despite the low water of August there were some excellent catches of barbel and chub. Feedback for the month on the WUF site showed the fishing held up well with barbel to 9.5lbs recorded on Wyebank, lots of chub and also good dace. The Courtfield fished consistently with a mix of difficult and good days, Huw James recording 14 barbel to 9lb 14oz on the 20th August and there were many sightings of salmon, which were settled throughout the fishery.
Improve your Coarse Fishing September – October issue carries a fabulously illustrated feature article on Dean Macey fishing Wyebank for barbel in early July. ” Dean declares this had been his best day’s barbelling ever”, an outstanding testimonial for this lovely stretch of water. A double page picture of Dean fishing, with the stunning backdrop of the river downstream, the woods and the romantic tower and spire of Welsh Bicknor in the distance, illustrates this great location for some of the finest barbel fishing anywhere.
Canoeing was intense throughout the holiday season and although it does’nt generally effect the fishing it certainly affects the fishermen, when the behaviour sinks to the standard of drunken tomfoolery. It is unacceptable that the quiet enjoyment of the fishermen is so rudely disrupted and I believe it is upto us all, fishery owners, keepers. gillies and fishermen, to make our views heard by the EA. They are the statutory Navigation Authority responsible for ensuring that the bylaws are upheld, whereby “masters of the vessels” do not cause damage to private property. It is vital in this regard to recognise and understand that fishing rights are deemed in law as private property. It is vital to report incidents to the EA. Lynn Bulbeck at the Navigation Authority has stated that they can respond to reports where the master of a vessel is failing to observe the bylaws.
After years of scarcity we are now seeing salmon all over the place on the Wye. July has seen Courtfield absolutely full of fish. I estimate there was between 60 and 100 fish spread through the beat with good sightings of many grilse as well. I caught a 9lb small summer fish in Legg meadow on the 16th before the river rose and a fish of 10lbs was caught by a salmon rod on the 25th. A good fish leaped clear of the water above the Wyebank crib yesterday while a likely small grilse was lost the day before and very small grilse have been showing along the bottom end of the Wyebank stretch. Our catch of salmon has now risen to a respectable 7 and 1 kelt for Courtfield and Wyebank.
Its early days but I for one feel confident that we are on the cusp of a major turn around, particularly with the evidence of the super small grilse which hopefully will be followed now by grilse of increasing size more typical of the late summer Wye fish.
What a month it has been for the Wyebank barbel! While the upper lower Wye and middle river was difficult for salmon and sometimes slow for coarse fishing, the Wyebank stretch was absolutely magnificent. Around 230 barbel were caught by 22 fishermen, with weights ranging from less than a pound up to almost 10lbs with several fish breaking tackle and suspected of being in double figures. The quality of the fish has been superb and every year class is being represented in the catches demonstrating a very healthy population.
That staple of the Wye, the humble chub, has become less desirable for the fishermen. However along with the barbel the Wyebank stretch has produced at least half the above number of chub to magnificent 5 pounders and plenty of 4 pounders. All in all a truly memorable month of fishing with smiles all round.
The Courtfield beat has also seen some stunning catches this month with Kraig Mcleod’s bag including 5 and 6lb chub and two 12lb and an 11lb barbel, Rudi’s 10 and 11lb barbel, while others have had chub pbs of over 6llbs and lots of good barbel. Alan Andrews bag on Wednesday 27th of 10 barbel all around 8lbs and a huge bag of chub to 4lbs plus and Tom Woollerton’s party of which two had 20 barbel, just shows the sort of coarse fishing Courtfield is famous for.
Its official from the WUF that Wyebank and Courtfield have been the best producing coarse fisheries on the river.