Feedback & Reports

First time on this beat for me, and I liked it a lot. Excellent access - thanks to whoever had strimmed the balsam and other undergrowth. Fished from 1715 to about 2000, on a beautiful sunny evening, with sandpiper and kingfisher on the river. As the river runs north-south here, the evening sun reflecting off the water into my eyes made seeing the fly challenging - I was fishing a duo, with a Sturdy's Fancy and a parachute Adams. A bramble scratch a week or two ago had caused a leak in one wader, so I became progressively soggier. I missed a good few, but after a struggle got one decent 38cm grayling on the spider in fast water at the mouth of the Edw. I took it home for supper.

1 Grayling

Nice to get a warmer day this August although the northerly wind blowing downstream did not help presentation. 9 fish in the morning from Lady Alexander's on a mixture of small dry flies and a further 3 on nymph from the deeper faster section at head of pool when things had gone quite with the dry fly. Lost one very decent fish while nymphing. Was the brown of a old large fish and managed to shake out barbless hook but not before rolling in front of me - would have been my largest grayling by a long way.
In the afternoon moved up to Abernant Stream - waded up full length and had nothing - worked my way back down and had 15 on gsb. Majority in the range of 8 to 10 ", a few a bit larger.
Hooked and lost a lot of fish on barbless hooks - would have had well over 40 fish otherwise.
Also enjoyed the airshow - they do fly very low!

27 Grayling

Day overcast but didn't get rained on with the river not too low but enough flow. Have fished this beat a few times and enjoy the fact its not too testing and wadding is easy and always produces. Rising fish gave me a chance to practice my dry fly skills and tempted a small Grayling to a size 16 Deer Hair emerger. All the rest came Czech nymphing in the faster water and all fish came to one fly - Black/Green PTN. Only one fish to about 12/14 inches was the catch of the day. Wind and temperature drop made call it a day early. Best days fishing on this best so far.

6 Grayling

Very attractive beat. Perfect conditions, good water height, coloured but clearing. Unfortunately, no sign of any salmon.

Water at a good height and fished well but despite using floating,intermediate & sinking line tactics ,did not touch a thing nor did I see any fish moving unfortunately.Late afternoon changed to trout rod so that I could at least feel something on the end of the line.One trout of just over a pound & broken by a bigger fish late on.Path to the top of the beat was a pleasure having been recently strimmed;Beware the wasp's nest in the hollow tree trunk 1/3rd. of the way up,it's just at head height.I always enjoy this beat as the runs last forever & are rel. easy wading. Oh well maybe next time.

2 Trout, 5 Grayling

Sadly the heavy rain from the night before had left the river swollen, fast and brown. It was a real shame as this beat looks fantastic and very fishy! We thought we should just crack on anyway and cover the water (what we could). We fished around 2-3 hours in the morning with nothing and returned after a BBQ lunch and carried on. 2 fish came to the hand, each 6-7 inches, one on a fritzy wet-fly the other on a gold head hares ear. Would love to go back and fish this water again if I get the chance and in normal conditions.

2 Trout

3 Trout, 31 Grayling

Given the unusual wind-free weather forecast, I decided that I must try to cash in and so went to Abernant for the day, and fished the evening, hoping for spinner fall, on the Gwent AS waters , on the Usk above Gilwern. It proved to be a most interesting and productive day in spite of unabated sunshine and 26 degrees. There were very few risers in the morning , some midge and the odd pulse of sedges and PWs. I started fishing duo and had three fish on a small HE nymph (Louis Noble's Special One) and rose a couple on the HE parachute. Having also seen a rise, and thought that the fish must be looking up, I changed to a single HE emerger (size 16/14 HE parachute or size 18 HE Duck's Dun) and had seven more grayling, mainly 8-10" but two of 12 and 14", and a 12" trout. A good start! Using the same flies in the afternoon, I ended up with 31 grayling on the day. Most were 8-10 inch fish, but a couple more 12 -13" fish were added in the afternoon, when more of the fish caught were dimpling risers, but the majority on the day weren't rising at all. At this time of year and into the autumn, these flies work for me because grayling are often feeding on small surface-active nymphs. I have also found that 18-20 sizes of this HE parachute are very effective when fish get on to midge. The Usk proved very interesting. To my amazement, when I arrived at about 7.15, I found the river literally covered in dimpling rises. The river was covered in ants!!!!! Unfortunately I had only met the end of the rise (curses!) as they had all passed through by about 7.45 and the rise stopped. In spite of a break off and having to set up the front end again, I managed to catch four lovely 12-14 inch fish. The fly I used was surprisingly (?) totally refused once the rise ceased. I couldn't rise a fish with it. After that I had a couple on Paul Procter's rusty spinner. Not a bad day, though being greedy, I'd have really wanted to have fished the whole ant fall. A fellow GAS member saw flying ants in Cardiff yesterday and fish rising at Chainbridge on the way home. Amazing how synchronised across such a wide area, ant-flying is. Anyone lucky enough to have caught all of this ant fall (grrrrr!) must have filled their boots! I mustn't complain though - a great day out and about.

3 Trout, 31 Grayling

Another great day on the Wye. Our first visit to this beat but will not be the last. Eight fish came to hand within the first hour, all being caught along the Lady Alexanders Catch and all were caught on spiders in the surface film. The remaining fish were caught (on nymphs) throughout the day, mainly from around the riffle below Abernant Stream. Apart from the trout and grayling we took five salmon parr. If we had connected with all the touches and knocks we could easily have recorded in excess of twenty fish.

2 Trout, 6 Grayling, 5 Other