Self Catering Accommodation in the idyllic Exmoor National Park
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Fishing on Exmoor Around Weatherham Farm Holiday Cottages
Exmoor Fishing for Wild Trout, Salmon, Seatrout, Rainbow Trout and Grayling
Around us on Exmoor there is a variety of easily accessible fishing opportunities, mainly fly fishing for both trout and salmon, also some grayling, and, a little further away, seatrout. Trout are both wild brown trout and rainbows in scenic rivers, streams and large and small lakes. Exmoor fishing is in superb scenery and for fishing holidays, Exmoor offers more than just fishing. It's almost a case of "Exmoor -- Excess fishing!"
Within under 10 minutes by car we have the rivers: Exe, Little Exe, Hadeo and Barle, (trout, salmon, and some grayling), Wimbleball Lake, (rainbows and wild browns), Exe Valley fishery at Exebridge. Permits for all these are readily available. A 20 minute car drive also brings in Clatworthy Reservoir, shown left, (rainbows and some browns), and Bellbrook still water trout fishery with large rainbows.
45 minutes drive brings in the dramatic East Lyn River: Watersmeet and Glenthorne fisheries permits from the tourist information centre in Lynton and hotels in Brendon, salmon,(£13.50/day), seatrout and trout. One hour's drive brings in the River Taw, (salmon, good seatrout, trout), the Rivers Mole and Bray, (ditto), a good stillwater: Blakewell, (rainbows, some brownies) and Wistland Pound and Hawkridge reservoirs, and also some small streams. Andrew is a keen fly fisherman and can help with advice and local knowledge.
Exmoor fishing offers something for most fishing tastes at very affordable prices, e.g. a day's permit for the River Little Exe, (mainly small wild brownies, with 10 oz being a good fish, some grayling and, later on with the right water, a chance of a salmon): £10 for about 5 miles of fishing. A shorter beat costs £6.00. Through the Dulverton Angling Association, totally wild fishing on both the Litte Exe, River Hadeo and River Barle is available free to members after paying their £30 season membership, (membership via Lance Nicholson Tackle, Dulverton, contact details below). The Association also has access to some excellent salmon beats on the main river Exe, through the "Fish the Exe Scheme".
Clatworthy Reservoir from the bank is £18.00 per day for 5 fish; (in early May 2 years ago my bag averaged 3.3lbs!), boats cost £15. Wimbleball Lake bank is £21.00 for 6 fish, average 1.75 - 2lbs, with a few larger fish; boats: £13 with engine hire available at £7.50, catch and release £16.50; one of its arms has a mayfly hatch!. See the fishing news page for full price details for 2010 for Clatworthy and Wimbleball.
Access to day permits for salmon, (and trout) fishing on some superb beats on the main River Exe and Barle: RETA, The River Exe and Tributaries Association ,has promoted a scheme whereby various riparian owners make their waters available for day permit access, normally for one, or two days each week. This is the "Fish the Exe" scheme which as a very informative website about these beats and other local news -- see the link to it at the foot of this page.
For current fishing news, please go to our website page 'fishing news'.
Fishing Guides and Tuition. Locally we have two capable and knowledgeable guides to help fly fishermen of all levels of experience from beginner upwards, on the above waters and also on various additional waters: John Dawson, tel. 01398 331498, and Nick Hart: tel. 01398 331660. Additionally we have a visiting coach, Graeme Lowndes who also provides guiding and tuition on a number of our local rivers as well as on his nearer Hampshire and Wiltshire chalk streams.
About 3 miles of the East Lyn river, (see photo below) costs £13.50 for salmon. Salmon permits on the main Exe, Mole and Taw are around £30, salmon permits via the fish the Exe Scheme are just £20 a day. Apart from the smaller stillwaters, fishing is very uncrowded, even solitary if you wish to go exploring! There is a wealth of very affordable fly fishing opportunities to suit all tastes. The Dulverton tackle and country clothing shop, Lance Nicholson, sells permits, (season only at £30) for Dulverton Angling Association, DAA, as well as permits for other local waters and has tickets for Angling 2000, from West Country Rivers Trust.
The local tackle shop in Dulverton, (plus DAA and other river permits), is also a good source of news and advice Tel. 01398 323409
If you see any pollution or dead fish, please report it directly to the Environment Agency incident hotline: 0800 807060
Temporary posting: THE RIVER EXE PROJECT
To address declining salmon catches, The River Exe Project, REP, started in 2004 with the aim of doubling salmon rod catches by 2018, to to the additional benefit to the whole 'riverine'' ecology. Two RETA committee members Tom Le Quesne and David Rice, had the vision to start it in conjunction with Dr Dylan Bright and Simon Evans of West country rivers Trust, WRT.
To address the under- performance of the River Little Exe as a juvenile salmon producer, in comparison with the more important and adequately performing River Barle it started on the L. Exe and most of its small tributaries, and then went on to include the important tributary, the River Haddeo, from which salmon spawning had ceased everywhere except just above its junction because of the 'Wimbleball Reservoir effect', then all other tributaries down to Tiverton. In mid 2011 it started to include the upper River Culm.
The Start whilst one of the L Exe's main problems was glaringly visually obvious -- significant and widespread overshading from neglected coppicing, (at one time alders were harvested fro gunpowder and artists charcoal). This severely depletes invertebrate and other life so that a 100 mtres of overshaded river is likely to contain only 40% of the number of salmon parr compared with a clear stretch. to quantify and prioiise overshaded areas for action and to investigate other possible problems, a walkover survey was carried out by Dulverton Angling Association, DAA, volunteers with WRT after training by them. This recorded, on very large scale maps, river and bankside habitat as well as recording other important, or sensitive features. It identified other significant features such as limited spawning habitat due to river modification and silting.
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