best fish to target in durham river

[metallica fish]

me and a friend are going to a free stretch down the river wear central durham. any suggestions for which fish to target for most success?

any tips on too?

cheers
fish

[Bushwhacker]

Its the close season for Coarse fish on the rivers ,so the only fish you can target at the moment are Game fish.
Check the Bylaws.

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Leisure/Northeast_byelaws.pdf

[Lynnzer]

There's 2 free stretches at Durham.
The one down from the town centre where the new hotels are, and the one up the road past the prison and cricket ground. Go up that road to the yacht club and the stretch is downstream from there to the bridge.

The 1st stretch is OK but it does get a good bashing and lots of snags in the water from shopping trolleys to tree branches. Typical brownies here of up to around 10" with an odd one of maybe 15".
Sea trout and salmon tend to go past this area up to the dam where they can be seen in the well aerated water.
To be honest if you only intend to fish this or the other free stretch it isn't worth paying the extra for the salmon licences.

The 2nd free stretch is deeper slower water which is more fished for coarse species. There's no reason why you may not get a good sized trout from there though but you're more likely to get chub, dace etc and maybe even barbel.

If you really want some better fishing at a reasonable cost there's a stretch downstream from the lower free stretch which from memory didn't cost much for a day license from the local tackle shop. It has some nice trout fishing with better lies for them and opportunity for decent fly or lure fishing. The last time I fished there was years ago when the tackle shop was up Gilesgate. Don't know who does the day tickets now but someone will give the info.

Fianl word. Parking is OK but be prepared to pay a lot if you hand about for a long session. The number of parking tickets dished out in Durham is on an equal with Central London.

[Bushwhacker]

Below the Free stretch is Syndicate run on both banks, i am a member of one and they don,t do day tickets.