david t

Thankyou, I will send a well written letter, with a SAE, and see if I get a response, the price of his guiding trips are rather expensive, especially if you blank! cheers dave

Hello I seem to remember reading somewhere that john bailey and bob james do a guiding service on the wye, and similar midland/midwales waters. Does anyone know how I can contact them? I cant afford their guiding services, but I may try and ask for a little advice with a polite letter, in my pursuit of information on the upper and mid wye coarse fishing. Many Thanks Dave

just seen some sticks online, not sure what you think, but some of them are way too expensive for what i pay, £3.95 for a simple stick, they are £1.25 in my local tackle shop. http://www.tackleshop.co.uk/ProductsList/m...b5-69ac0778505f some much better prices http://www.tackleuk.co.uk/index.php?cPath=27_34

just bringing this back up. Ive found out that there are chub pike and grayling in the river elan in mid wales, and also that the river wye around builth wells is worth fishing for chub and grayling, anyone fished these at all? cheers

Chubber and loafer? To be honest, i think its just a case of two names for one float, I may be wrong? But ive seen floats that are labelled loafers, ie, the wide short hollow plastic air filled floats by drennan. But ive also seen a float a of exactly the same pattern, but made out of balsa, labelled chubbers. although I do have some floats labelled chubber, that have a weighted base, made out of brass, possibly to keep the stability, without having to put masses of shot on the line. I dont think it really matters to be honest what you call it, although i suppose it is confusing to some.

If the swims in question are 12 foot deep, or so, but the flow is smooth, not boily, and the speed is slow-steady, then you would want to maybe go up to a 8 no 4 stickfloat, to ensure that you could put a reasonable amount of shot of the line, to ensure the hook bait gets down to the bottom quite quickly. if the swim is deep and also the flow is racing through, then fish a balsa, carrying say 4AAA or more, so again, to ensure the hookbait doesnt spend half of the trot through the swim in mid water, slowly sinking. A heavier loading float in a deep racing swim, will also be more positive, and wont keep ducking under every second. particulary in fast flood water, chances are the fish will be on the riverbed, so you want to keep your hookbait there, and get it down there quickly.

You can cover most situations with about 6 floats, providing you dont cast them into trees. Personally ive never used loafers that much on my rivers, the only time i have is for floatfishing lobworms, but for anything else i find them too big. get yourself a couple of plastic or hardwood stemmed sticks, with an ordinary domed top, the type of sticks that have a slight taper on them, with no shoulders, get one or two in 4 no 4 size, and one or two in 6 no 4 or 8 no 4, these will cope with waters from 3 to 7 feet, and from slight to reasonable flow. the sticks that carry more weight will be more stable in faster water. If the water is too fast for them, you will want a balsa bodied stick float, these are 100% balsa, and are more buoyant, a balsa the same size as a 6 no 4 plastic bodied stick will carry about twice as much weight, and will be more stable in fast water. The type of flow is important too, if the water is boiling, it will be hard to run a stick through properly, you want a smooth, if quick flow, one that the fish can comfortably sit in. if you want to fish a boily swim, you will possibly need to fish a big balsa carrying 1-2 swanshot, or a chubber type float, which are like a stubby fat stick float. too be honest though, in real boily water, your often best either, not fishing it, or fishing a ledger there. I have a few avons, these are more like a big pole float in looks than a normal stick, alot of them have a aluminium stem, and a balsa wood body, the aluminuim stem helps keep the stick level in the water, in fast flows. Ive often found that you dont actually need to fish that heavier a float, keep to as light a float as possible, if you can fish a 4 no 4 stick, then dont fish a 8 no 4 for the hell of it, the lighter float will give better presentation. as long as the flow is suitable. Drennan do good stick floats, but you can also get good handmade 'local' tackle shop sticks. as a guide, get your son a few 4 no 4 sticks, a few 8 no 4 sticks, a few balsa's of about 4-6AAA, and one or two chubbers, in case he wants to use whole lobs on the hook. and get some light line to go with them, theres nothing worse than trying to fish a stick with 6lb line, 2 or 3lb in much better.

watching a grebe swimming underwater, about as manouvrable as a seal underwater, chasing fish at speed. this one time when i was fishing at a small river, these two swans came into land on the river, they didnt see us, and were going too fast, it looked like they were putting their airbrakes on, and started backwards flying to slow them down, they made a hell of a racket, and it did look like they were going to land on us fishing. but they managed to control their landing and splashed down a few feet away from us. and a badger running head first at speed into a metal gate, at night, i could just make it out, but you could hear the clattering sound from 100 yards away.

I think moving swims is best too, also you may well have chub in your swim, but if trout are ramaging about, and you catch a few, and they jump about, they will scare the chub off no trouble. you could think about feeding and fishing abit differently, focus on keeping real quiet the instant you get to the swim, and then quietly drop a bait in, without feeding, so as to drop it on a chub/barbel/carps nose, without attracting a few trout in first by feeding.

Many thanks for that, I have got onto the wye and usk foundation, and they are sending me some information in the post. thanks again.

ive not fished it, but i would expect, just a usual pole, but with a bung of some sort on the large end, so water doesnt come into the tip, and make the pole heavy. Just because everyone else is using it, doesnt mean its best, they may only be using it cos everyone else is using it, and they like to be the same. If you need the presentation of a pole a long way out, but cant comfortably hold the pole at that length, why dont you get a spray bar (is that the right name) so you can rest your pole on in to take the strain off your arm. also, i would expect that doing that you would hit bites faster compared to the floating pole, as the floating pole would surely be 'stuck' to the water surface briefly as you lift or move the pole sidewards/upwards to strike. dont follow suit just because everyone else is doing it.

Hello I know this is the fly section, but i thought it better to ask this question on here as you lads may have more experience on the upper wye than the coarse lads. Well, im interested in fishing the river wye around rhayader or builth wells, with coarse fish in mind, mainly chub or roach. Im travelling from aberystwyth, so I cant really travel too far east, towards where it joins the severn. whereabouts on the wye do the coarse fish start to come into their own? Many thanks for your advice david

Maxima is the most reliable line ive found. its not hi-tech, and its got a good bit of stretch in it, it seems pretty abrasion resistant too. Also it knots very well, it never seems to kink at the knot like some other lines. also, my local shop always tend to sell it for £2.99 a spool, which means imcan afford to respool quite alot.

yep, thats not suprising, but none the less sad, and im sure people are changing their ways far to slowly to prevent it happening, and also even if we stop using the planets resources completely, up and coming countries such as china, and the other 'tiger' countries will carry on accelarating in their use of resources as they expand. And I dont think theres much we can do to be honest, and there isnt much the government could do, its in the hands of the general public, who dont on the whole like to be inconvienced.

Thankyou gorton Hopefully the floods will have subsided by january! I will cross my fingers, and hope for abit of luck with the weather, at least having a guide, if it does flood, we will be able to locate a backwater or something. Thanks again, Dave

Anyone know anymore about chub in mid wales? Im very interested in the upper severn now, anyone else know anything about the chub in the upper severn? cheers, dave.

I thought this was something about how train service has gone down the pan, I hate trains now, and this gives me another reason to avoid them!!!!!! some people are just plain odd balls though, that would render him totally unemployable on his CV wouldnt it!!!!

Its the same with cycling, anyone can get on a bike and be labelled a cyclist, whether they are a tit head or not, and make people think that all cyclists are rogue maniacs, when in reality there are a lot of them that are serious and actually belong to a club and national body. Until we start doing a test for every new angler, we will continue to get a few mongrels among the prize winning pedigrees. in other words, its impossible to prevent. I disagree though that we have nothing to worry about with the antis though, what you must remember is, they have an innfinate amount of time with which to chip away at anglings image, where as anglers dont have that same guarantee. Also, they have absolutely nothing to lose, we have everything to lose, and as such, while we have to act like we are on inspection, they can play dirty til the cows come home, and not damage their cause. This kind of post does seem to come up regulary though.

what about giving them a good coating of mud or silt? might take the smell with it when you wash it off.

Those PETA lot are simply brain washing extremists, that try to chip into the minds of the public by triggering off little sensitive parts of the mind, such as comparing fish to the so called cuddly and cute monkeys. The general public is slowly starting to wise to their schemes I think, and they are beginning to see that they are simply after world domination, its just they are trying to go for it indirectly, going through the back door so to speak. I think people will get fed up with them soon, and their plans will back fire on them, when the general, non angling, non hunting, non horse racing, non greyhound racing, non pigeon racing, non ferretting public start to see that PETA are trying to infringe and change their general lives too. They will probably call for a ban on clarks and other shoe shops that sell leather goods soon, then the public will revolt against the bu%*ers. just out of interest, how many walks of life/hobbies/sports are there that peta are against? I can think of: fishing, hunting, ferreting, horse racing, shooting, pigeon racing. im sure there are more that peta want to ban.

Ah, newtown or welshpool are in my range, definately, and big chub, big chub are my downfall!! some people have chocolate as a downfall, for me its seeing the head of a big dog chub go over the landing net! I will get onto the wales fishing website, they have lots of club info. cheers. dave.

Many thanks ken, thats very helpful, i feel more comfortable on rivers, I will follow some of those leads you mention though, either way, im probably in for a drive, Im not really considering doing it every weekend, just the occasional trip when the weather is right, so I could put up with a big drive once every few weeks. Steve, I am doing marine and freshwater biology, although, my main interest is the freshwater side. John Fish is still here, he is head of biology, and is in my opinion a good old boy, Bob Wootton is still here too, although i dont have much to do with him. Its a nice place on the whole I think. Dogfish, cheers, I will, if it means a lesser drive, go somewhere like the upper severn, I will happily go after grayling instead. You probably see what im getting at, i would like to just get on a river occasionally here, im not too bothered what i fish for, be it chub, grayling, dace or pike, as long as im river fishing. cheers all. i will have to get hold of a road atlas, and see whats in range.

Cheers mate I have considered taking up game fishing, but I cant afford to shell out on game tackle at the moment, also from what i gather, the prime time for the Rheidol and Ystwyth is may to october, and as im a 3rd year, I would only have about a month within which to fish! But if it wasnt for that I would love to, I have to admit a good sea trout would be more than enough to bring a smile to my face. I was thinking about pike or chub on the severn, as I already have the tackle for them, and I could easily target them in the winter. Out of interest, what course did you do at Aber? you werent a biology student by any chance were you?? Cheers, Dave.

Hello Im interested in finding some pike or chub fishing in mid wales. Im at university in Aberystwyth, and should soon have my car here, so i can drive to some good fishing. Ive tried the sea fishing here, its ok, but i would prefer coarse fishing. I am willing to drive 1 1/2 hours, maybe 2 maximum, I am interested in fishing the Wye or Severn rivers. I have had a look on the wye and usk passport site, but I thought I would ask people first hand. I say chub, as i think i could drive to some chub reaches on either of the two rivers, and pike as I hear they are widespread in the wye. I would get day tickets as long as they are under £10, or a season ticket for under £30. anyone recommend any fishing on either the upper/mid severn or wye then? Im interested in rivers primarily. many thanks for your help, dave.

Cheers all, Thanks for the link judy, I will use it i think. Chesters, I actually agree with you, most of the chinese etc, students here do seem to courses such as management and finance. It does make me laugh the way all the brits do seem to do very flashy courses, alot of people here do 'film and tv studies' sorry, but thats not exactly going to be useful for every person that does it, likewise I see alot of drama students. Me? Im doing freshwater biology, it might seem abit flashy, but it isnt, counting bloodworms in decaying sediment and working out the phytoplankton densities of a loch isnt that flashy!!!! but im happy with it. cheers again to all, help and advice is much appreciated. dave