Warwick Hall Fishing: Information on Fishing in Cumbria

Fishing Beats

Fishing at Warwick Hall is divided into two beats: Top Beat and Park Beat. Fishing tenants take a beat for the day, then alternate if they are fishing more than one day at a time. Both beats are about a mile long, and share the quality fishing equally.

Today, the pools on the Top Beat are:

  • The Otterstone (yes, there are otters)
  • The House Pool
  • Gravel Bed
  • Garden Wall
  • Nunnery
  • Jackies

The pools on the Park Beat are:

  • Coops Stream
  • Crow Wood
  • Howard's Hole
  • Rushes
  • Battery
  • Irthing Foot
  • Duffers
Otterstones Coops Stream
Ottersones and Coops Stream
Howards Hole Crow Wood
Howards Hole and Crow Wood

There are 2 good little fishing huts, one for each beat. Both are in the Park, one next to Howard's Hole for the benefit of Park Beat tenants, and the other next to Jackie's for fishermen on the Top Beat.

We're justly proud, of the high standard of the banks and amenities on the beats. Keeper Graham Moffat sets high standards for himself (and for everyone else!) and the credit goes to him. It adds enormously to the pleasure of a day's fishing to find well kept huts and carefully tended banks.

Access to the river is enhanced by Graham’s good efforts on the banks – no underbrush to fight your way through!

The Wading is all on gravel so is relatively easy on the Warwick Hall pools – no great boulders to clamber over – no pot holes to worry about. That’s down to Mother Nature, but it’s a nice feature too.

Lastly, you’ll find a proper loo in the Fishermen’s Room and a rod room for overnight visitors in the house.

All the pools can be reached by car, with a short walk to the water. This allows a few long term tenants to continue to enjoy their sport as they head for their ninetieth birthday! Or you can of course walk between the pools for those with a bit more spring in their step.

We have two boats available for when the water is high and the pools are deep. You'll find the key in the Fishermen's Room at the main house - be careful to return it!

Excerpt from Fishing Huts, the Angler's Sanctuary by Jo Orchard-Lisle, Excellent Press 2008

Top Beat Hut

The wooden shed looks out on Jackies Stream and Duffers , and further downstream there are pools called Loaf of Bread and Howards Hole. I always wonder where these names come from, and I suspect they derive from odd incidents like the one described on a certificate pinned to the wall of the hut, which relates the recent heroic effort by Hot Rod & Ghillie when they rescued a maiden who fell in the river. Another photo of men clad in waders is labelled 3 men in Incontinent Suits, and a poem caught my eye:

With arms outstretched throughout the day,
He tells of fish that got away,
And, after dinner, gaining strength
Both fish and stories grow in length.Hot Rod & Ghillie

A table with benches and comfortable armchairs all looked extremely neat and tidy. Outside, I met the gamekeeper, Graham Moffat, who told me that the whole area around the hut had been flooded at the beginning of 2005, when Carlisle was also very badly affected.

Park Beat Hut

Another wooden hut furnished in the same way but made slightly more stylish by the addition of a verandah, and looking in remarkably good order, despite the fact that it, too, had been flooded up to its windows. Graham told me. great improvements have been made: the river banks are carefully maintained, and steps were being installed in places for the more elderly fishermen.

On the chart of salmon caught since 1955, I saw that the most recent entry, for 2006, showed 201 fish with an average weight of 8.5 lbs. In 2000 a column had been started for fish returned, with 114 going back in 2006. It was also clear that until the 1960s the majority of fish were caught in the spring, but that now summer and autumn are the most prolific seasons. There were no records of other fish caught but I did learn that a Father and son caught 130 grayling in one day just below the hut.

Book your fishing: call 01228 561546