Dean Macey, Ali Hamidi and Richard Stewart had a day on both Wyebank and Courtfield as part of a feature for TV for Improve your Coarse Fishing Magazine. In Dean’s own words “it was by far the most productive days barbel fishing that Ive ever had“!
Below are some of the pictures taken by Richard for the magazine article
Ali hooked into a fish
Dean hooked into another!
Bringing a Barbel in
Ali with a lovely fish
Dean with a large chub
Another chub for Dean
Ali with another Barbel!
Dean in amongst the Water Buttercup with a Barbel
In late September Peter Foster and his friend Richard fished Courtfield, the photo is of Peter’s largest Barbel at 10lb 3oz. Other fish caught that day were, as Peter describes; “I had just the five barbel – three sevens, a 9-11 and the 10-3 – a very good average for the Wye, I would say. Richard had even more success later in the day at Courtfield”
He added in an email “Just a brief note to show my appreciation for your lovely stretch of river. I thoroughly enjoyed my day’s fishing, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to meet you, too.”- Thanks Peter it’s always good to know that people enjoy their fishing on the stretches.
Peter's barbel resting in his net
It is great to have pictures of fish so that they can be seen fully but it is nicer to see the fish back in the water too!
This was Phil Brumhills amazing fish from Courtfield, caught mid October 2011
10lb 12 oz Barbel from Courtfield
Jonathon Avery, his Dad and his boss Dan from Cadbury Angling came and enjoyed the Courtfield water. Here are some of their catches.
8lb 12oz Barbel
10lb 6oz Barbel
5lb 4oz Chub
Barbel caught on one of the Legg Meadow swims
Another great Barbel
Pike caught on Legg Meadow swim
Mike and Alan Holcombe had a good day on Wyebank beat in late July 2011. He said in an email to us:
“Thanks to you we thoroughly enjoyed two superb evening fishing sessions on your water. Our total catch for the two short sessions was 14 Barbel to 7lb.4oz., and 6 Chub to 4lb.1oz. “
Below are a few photos of their catches.
Mike's first Barbel from Wyebank
A second barbel for Mike
Evening Barbel
Alan with his Wyebank Barbel
Alan with his second fish
Hooked into a Barbel on the first cast of the evening!
Thanks to Mike and Alan for letting us use their photos.
Over the next few days we will be posting a number of photos of fish catches from this year, this will hopefully go to start a guide to the fish that lie within the Courtfield and Wyebank beats. Where possible we will include detail of the fish and where they were caught. Anyone fishing or who has fished on our beats with photos of catches that they are willing to share please do send them in.
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.