River guide
River Dee in Cheshire
2 checked stretches so far — day tickets, club waters and guest tickets, each checked against the club's own pages.
The lowdown
The River Dee around Farndon and Holt is a wild natural spate river forming part of the England–Wales border. Farndon Bridge is the main local landmark and crossing, and the association has access to approximately 4.5 miles of river.
It’s described as a stunning, year-round fishing stretch, with winter fishing especially productive when fish shoal. Predator fishing is good, with pike over 20 lb and perch over 3 lb caught. Bala Lake releases can increase cold-water flow on Thursdays and Sundays, making conditions tougher.
Close season reminder
Coarse fishing on English rivers is closed from 15 March to 15 June inclusive. That's the law for coarse fish on rivers — it's not a club rule, and game-fishing seasons work differently.
GOV.UK — Freshwater rod fishing rules: when and where you can fishStretches
2 of 2 checked stretches. No rankings — we don't know which is "best" on your day, and neither does anyone else.
River Dee (Farndon & Holt)
River Dee · Members only
A proper wild River Dee stretch around Farndon and Holt, with roughly 4.5 miles of year-round club water. It’s a cracking spate river for predator fishing, with big pike and perch among the known fish.
Checked 11 Oct 2026
Bathers Beat, Llangollen Maelor Angling
River Dee · Day ticket or members
Bathers Beat is a cracking 1.8-mile slice of the River Dee, running from Bont Bridge to 300 metres below the railway viaduct. Both banks are fishable, with proper variety: trout, grayling, salmon, sea trout and some useful coarse-fish water.
Checked 11 Oct 2026
Pins mark the access postcode each club gives, not the bank itself. Exact boundary map: see rights holder.
Access & tickets
Senior membership
Dee Anglers
Dee Anglers membership for the 2022 season. Membership runs from 1 January to 31 December; following-year tickets are available from 1 December.
£25 for the 2022 season (as listed 11/10/2026)
Covers: River Dee (Farndon & Holt)
Trout/grayling day ticket
Llangollen Maelor Angling
Day ticket for trout and grayling fishing.
£25 (as listed 11/10/2026)
Covers: Bathers Beat, Llangollen Maelor Angling
Adult annual membership
Llangollen Maelor Angling
Annual membership.
£110 (as listed 11/10/2026)
Covers: Bathers Beat, Llangollen Maelor Angling
Intermediate membership
Llangollen Maelor Angling
For ages 18–21.
£55 (as listed 11/10/2026)
Covers: Bathers Beat, Llangollen Maelor Angling
Species
We only tag a stretch with a fish when the club names it. Some clubs name fish across all their water rather than stretch by stretch — those are flagged on the card.
| Stretch | Pike | Perch | Trout |
|---|---|---|---|
| River Dee (Farndon & Holt) | ● | ● | |
| Bathers Beat, Llangollen Maelor Angling | ● |
● named by the club for this stretch · ●* named across the club's waters · blank = not named (not "absent").
Rules — who runs what
Access is membership-based through Dee Anglers, with no guest passes issued. Membership runs from 1 January to 31 December, and tickets for the following year are available from 1 December.
Club pageDay tickets can be bought online or from Watkin & Williams in Llangollen, Foxons Mile End Mill and Corwen Manor Fishing. Annual and intermediate memberships are also available through Llangollen Maelor Angling.
Club pageFished the river recently?
Pick the stretch you fished and add a 20-second update there — one stretch at a time keeps it useful.
Each stretch page lists its own key rules. You'll need an Environment Agency rod licence on all of them.
River levels
Measured readings straight from the Environment Agency. These are the nearest gauges we've matched — not readings from the stretches themselves.
No Environment Agency gauge matched on this river near these stretches yet.
Tips & reports
Our take (editorial, not club advice): on any decent-sized river, a lead that holds bottom without dragging is half the battle — go up in weight before you go up in bait. A bit of extra colour after rain often brings barbel and bream closer in, but a fast-rising, debris-filled river is dangerous; if in doubt, don't. Weather tools built for still lakes don't translate neatly to rivers, so we haven't bolted a lake-style weather score on here.
No angler reports on these stretches yet — we'll only show real ones once our moderated river reports are live.
Where this comes from · checked 11 Oct 2026
- GOV.UK — Freshwater rod fishing rules: when and where you can fish
- Dee Anglers — home (deeanglers.co.uk)
- Llangollen Maelor Angling — home (llangollen-maelor-angling.com)
Rules, prices and ticket availability change — the rights holder's own page always wins.