I had an email recently from a fisherman who was concerned by some of the Gallery pictures, where it is obvious that fish mats have not been used. This is a fair point and hence forward I shall be actively encouraging the use of fish mats for unhooking fish and also for pictures. So please, if you have’nt already got one, add a fish mat to your tackle bag and use it always.
February 15, 2012
Best Practice
October 6, 2011
September big fish review
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.
June 16, 2011
Courtfield Coarse Fishing Swims
I have strimmed out the following swims along Legg Meadow for the new season.
Going down river from gate.
1.Legg Meadow top end two pegs immediately across field from gate at ST Pumping Station – This is the most popular swim but then it is the closest to the car parking. Barbel, chub, pike
2.Alder with WUF sign one peg. Barbel, chub, pike.
3. Twin alders one peg. One of the best bags of specimen barbel and chub came from here with chub to over 6lbs and barbel to 14lbs.
4. New swim one peg.
5.Alder Bay two pegs. Can be very good for chub
Going upriver from Beech tree WUF sign and layby.
6. Bottom end Legg meadow two pegs
The swims in the wood from Legg meadow crib and wood crib are salmon pools and can be fished from the cribs
The swims below the metal steps to the right 1 to 2 pegs and downstream below willow bush 1 peg and to the end as far as you can get stopping approx 100 yards above the island are all fishable.
June 8, 2011
Low Water Contradictions.
Yesterday I was horrified by a one foot drop of water below summer level over a period of 36 hours. Today I am resigned to the reality that we are looking at conditions similar to 75/76 and yet with a load more abstractors. Our nearest point of major abstraction is the Severn Trent pumping station which compensates flows accordingly from the Elan Valley. this means that upriver beats reap a dividend which we don’t. In practice it appears there is more water in the middle river as a result of the Lydbrook pumping station. As for the farmers, they all have permission to abstract until flows reach the appallingly low flow of around 133 million gallons per day at Redbrook, downstream from Monmouth. I can’t remember the exact figures I was given by the EA, but today there is around 197 million gallons flowing past Redbrook and so the river will have to drop by approximately 33 percent of its present flow in order for these pumps to be turned off. That in itself is a very worrying concept.
When I looked down on the wharf pool yesterday it was clearly unfishable due to the flow being cut off by the dropped river and the ranunculus, which was now all trailing on the surface. I went to bed depressed. Today I have cut the weed to reopen the pools and was astonished by what I found. The main fly channel is averaging 3ft with holes to 4ft 6″. The overhanging and trailing willows along the far bank are providing adequate cover with upto 2ft of good flowing water over gorgeous clean gravels, while the bottom pool is perfectly clear of weed and clean to a depth of over 5ft covering a flat rock slab floor in places and gravel and small rocks in others. The whole stretch of Wyebank is good clear well oxygenated water still providing a more than adequate habitat for the salmon.
My greatest surprise was to find two big salmon redds from last winter’s spawning and several smaller ones and sitting in the smaller ones I saw the biggest sea lampreys, with one as long as my leg and all of them as long as my arm. In other words they were upto their maximum given length of 90cm. In all I saw at least half a dozen sea lamprey spawning sites. I have seen the clear stones before, evidence of lamprey activity, but never have I experienced standing so close to these extraordinary creatures that I could put my foot under them and lift them up. Quite remarkable.
May 19, 2011
Fly Life bonanza Courtfield and Wyebank
Invertebrate Fly life along the Wye at Courtfield and Wyebank has been fantastic this Spring. The mayfly hatch has diminished today to a trickle and I suspect it will be over by the weekend after a month of pretty well continuous daily hatches from early morning till dusk. During the peak there were some fantastic afternoon hatches about 2.30 with green drakes pouring off the water. It should of course just be getting into the hatch at this time of the month. There was lots of spinner along Legg Meadow this afternoon with warm sunny spells to bring the mating mayflies out of the trees and bushes after the last few days of cooler weather.
The sedge flies are hatching in profusion, too many too identify without a net and a guide book and even then its pretty uncertain with a lot of species. The Alder fly is also once more making its friendly self apparent in a way unseen for many years
Yesterday evening there was a large swarm of Sherry Spinner (Blue winged olive) through the wood beat of the Courtfield on a par with the River Kennet, but extraordinarily early. Also large swarms of medium olive red spinner which I have’nt seen here in such numbers for years.
Bleak? in their multitude have been surface feeding along with dace, the occasional salmon parr, some large chub and the odd trout. Trout fishing has not been too good and most fish would seem to be feeding on nymphs and sub surface food. But then the water along Wyebank is now so low that the trout have had to abandon their bankside haunts and move into the faster mid stream flow. Also there has been virtually no fishing effort at all. Rather disappointing in that regard. Shad have been scarce so far and only the odd tiny twaite have been taken accidentally on fly whilst trout fishing.
Also exciting is the re appearance of spotted flycatchers after some years of absence.
So all in all it has been a prolific Spring at the waterside on the river Wye at Lydbrook.
April 24, 2011
Swan mussels, water snails and fly life
The low water has allowed me to investigate the state of the invertebrate and other populations in the river Wye along the Wyebank stretch this April. I should think that water snails, of which there are many species in the river, must be an important element of the fish’s diet, particularly barbel. Every larger stone is currently covered underneath with the gelatinous balls of water snail eggs. The nymphs of the Yellow May dun and Olive Upright are also everywhere and the freshwater shrimp, which was quite scarce a few years ago, is now again more common. Although the shrimp prefers clean water it can tolerate mild levels of pollution and is not the marker of pristine water that it was once thought to be. However the shrimp’s abundance is vital as a food item for fish, particularly salmonids.
Most satisfying is the abundance of swan mussel shells on the raised shoals of the far bank, which are now dry. This is a swan mussel site recorded in SSSI assessment of circa 1996 which by 2006 was virtually devoid of shells. The swan mussel lives in the sandy and silty gravel substrate, so living organisms are not seen. The presence of significant numbers of non eroded shells is indicitive of a healthy population.
Yesterday, Saturday 23rd, two days before St Mark’s day, was marked for me by the largest swarm of hawthorn fly which I have seen for years. Bibio marci, the Hawthorn or St Mark’s Fly due to its occurrence on St Mark’s day, has again been quite scarce in more recent years. As this is a terrestrial fly its abundance or otherwise cannot be blamed on river pollution! At Little Dean, on the eastern edge of the Forest of Dean, where hatches were immense over a decade ago their demise cannot be blamed on spraying as it is traditional dairy farming with little or no spraying of any sort. Whether there will be sufficient winds to blow the hawthorn onto the water to induce a rise of trout, only time will tell.