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Advice for first Wye trip

Nick Franklin

Nick Franklin

Senior Member
Afternoon gents

For our Christmas present my Dad has paid for my brother and me to stay at Builth for a couple of nights, so we can finally have our long talked about Wye trip. We're not looking for advice on tactics, more areas/stretches to try - are there any good ones near Builth or will we be better off travelling further downstream? I've heard varying things about the Wye and Usk Foundation, what are people's opinions?

The other good thing is that we don't have a date booked in yet, so all things being well once the world gets back to normal we can within reason go any time this summer/autumn - any advice on best times to be there would also be much appreciated. I would especially like to try and catch a Barbel on the float if this makes any difference!

Cheers, Nick
 
Wye and Usk foundation is excellent and staff always helpful. I will admit that i use them for fly fishing especially on the small streams. Probably a bit up the air at the moment as both Wye and Usk badly hit by the floods. Would have thought that lower down than Builth would be better for Barbel as generally quite shallow and fast flowing up above Hay.
 
Meant to add that Wye and Usk foundation has a superb website where you can book your fishing and get info on all the beats with catch return info available. Also have monthly reports on coarse fishing (as well as salmon,l trout and sea trout) whivh are helpful.
 
Personally I wouldn't consider Builth as somewhere where I would want my first Wye trip to catch Barbel. As said you might want to consider downstream for the more productive stretches. Although not As productive as it used to be, look at Caradoc on the WUF, a lovely stretch with plenty of options, and a big bonus is you can drive along the bank.
Opposite this stretch is the Birmingham AA stretch , Stacklands, which for a season ticket cost of just forty pounds or less for seniors you can fish all year, the same price as a single WUF day ticket. The stretch is ad joined by a Victorian footbridge and there is parking on BAA which is a short walk to the River.
The Wye is largely controlled now by WUF, which is fine, but is expensive, imo, I thought twenty pound was steep, but now forty is beyond what I would pay.
There are a few more options 're day tickets, and I or some others on here that could help, but overall I would say look around the Ross or Hereford areas .
 
Thanks very much chaps, plenty of good info to get me started. Will do some more research and get planning. I guess the big question now is when/if the country gets back to normal, it's looking more and more like that may be quite some time...

Hope everyone stays safe and healthy.

Nick
 
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