Monday 27th October 2025.
Yesterday the eagerly anticipated 63rd annual River Wye Championship took place with 120 anglers from all over the country descending on Hereford Rugby Club for the 7am draw. The river level at Hereford Bridge had been up and down all week with levels rising steadily from 0.11m last Saturday to peak at 1.41m late on Saturday afternoon. Levels then started to drop overnight to 0.99m at the start of the match at 10am. With not much colour in the water there were hopes of some good catches of chub, barbel and perch.. However further rain in Wales on Saturday meant that the river in Hereford started to rise slowly throughout the match and take on a dirty brown colour with roach dace and perch likely to feature, as well as the large shoals of bleak. With overnight temperatures dropping to 4C but feeling more like 1C, this, combined with the colour of the water meant that it may be a tough match for anglers pegged on the out of town sections.
At the draw there were the usual moans and groans when the anglers realised which section they had drawn on. Those drawing Belmont 2 (Rugby Club side) or Belmont 3 (Asda bank) were relieved as there were no long walks involved and only the large bleak shoals to contend with. The only question then was to choose whether to fish for the bleak or try and get to the better quality fish below them. As the match is divided into 24 five peg sections, the aim is to at least catch more than the other 4 anglers in that section in order to claim the section prize of £55.
The river fished hard in the end with quite a few dry nets, but former Wye Champion Hadrian Whittle decided to set up shop and fish for bleak from his peg on the Asda bank just upstream of the Sea Cadets building on the opposite bank. The bleak catcher extraordinaire from Ross on Wye caught a good stamp of fish during the match, although they vanished at times, and he ended up with 1080 bleak which combined with his11/2 lb of roach gave him a total weight of 52lb. This was enough to take the coveted trophy for a second time in 5 years and prizemoney of £800.
Runner up was Dave Wallis (Worcester) who weighed in 39lb 12oz of chub and barbel caught on meat from a peg below Tinkers Hole on the Carrots stretch. This earned him prizemoney of £600, Third place overall went to Andrew Cranston from Wiltshire who was pegged in the middle of the Tennis Courts section. His catch of barbel for 38lb 7oz earned him £410.
With the river not in a settled condition it was not surprising that it did not fish that well and there were dry nets in most sections. Full results below:
