Feedback & Reports

River perfect. Lovely setting and fantastic beat. Sadly no Grayling to be had, although this didn't come as a complete surprise. We know next to nothing about Grayling fishing apart from mid Feb is probably not the best time to go.Hope to come back in the spring and fish for trout.

After taking a gamble and making the journey in far from ideal conditions I was treated to the most beautiful scenery in that part of the world. About 5 inches covered the ground and made the whole area look like something out of a natural history documentary. Looking more like a green Michelin man than an angler i made my way across the fields towards the river. What a beat! Absolutely beautiful, especially with all the snow. I fished the majority of the upper half of the beat and not surprisingly found fishing a bit slow. Fortunately I did manage to find a few fish Czech nymphing and was rewarded with two beautiful, fin perfect Grayling of 16" and 18". These two fish combined with the scenery and the snow made it all very much worthwhile. Sadly by 4:30pm the looming darkness, frozen fingers, frozen rod rings and line forced me to head home. Look forward to trying out the beat when everything's a bit greener and warmer. As always thanks WUF!

5 x grayling 13 - 18 inches, on leaded wet flies fished in a team: Red Tag, Yellow Bumble, Grayling Steel Blue. The upper Wye looked to be in good condition (0.61 at Ddol), although I can't say anything very complimentary about the weather which was around 2 degrees all day with alternate showers of rain and sleet. And I found Craig Llyn a most attractive and interesting beat, with different types of water where you could practice almost any style of fishing you could wish: pocket water, runs, gutters, gravel flats, and some sumptuous deep salmon pools, all neatly labelled. Only the wading (with the exception of the bottom end) is not exactly dangerous, but hard work for us folks in our sixties - lumpy boulders rather than gravel for the most part.
This was in fact my first experience on Craig Llyn, which made such a good reputation for itself throughout 2012. I would have liked to try for its grayling during the cream of the season, September and October, when fish are rising, but other commitments and the floods kept me away until now. So I was starting from a position of ignorance and it's more or less a given that fishing a strange water for grayling in January is going to involve a lot of searching. So it proved, because I probably wasted time on unproductive water and I never came across a large shoal. However, I did eventually find a couple of small pods of grayling after lunch which included some lovely fish.
Some large fish have been reported from Craig Llyn and on this day mine were, in order, 18, 16, 17, 14 and 13 inches. Which is very nice of course, and I don't wish to seem to be looking a gift-horse in the mouth, but I would have been happier to have caught a few smaller ones as well. Where are they, those grayling we need for future years? They were certainly hiding on this day and 3 of those 5 nice grayling had the dreaded cormorant scars, which makes me a bit suspicious - like so many areas of the upper river, there isn't much cover at Craig Llyn. Anyway, a very nice day despite the weather.
One dead salmon kelt on the bank at the top of the beat - foxes or otters had most of it already.

Arrived at beat after a sharp overnight frost. Fog gradually subsided with the afternoon sunny and cold. Water conditions very good. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any grayling despite trying nymphs at various depths. The beat looked excellent with plenty of likely looking water so I was somewhat dismayed to (almost) blank, the only relief being a nice pound and a half out of season trout in excellent condition, which was returned.

Water level at good height and running clear. Fish were lying very deep and hard to find. 4 good Grayling all around 15" and a very hard fighting OOS cock Trout what must have been about 18" to 20". Believe I could've done better with heavier flies. Back to the tying bench.

A good session on the lower section of the beat. Approx 30 grayling and numerous trout tween us with my pal finding some quality grayling including two of 2lb +. Fish fell to Czech Nymph, Klink/dink but the real damage done with spiders fished over the shallow section. Lovely beat and beautiful looking fish. Salmon pools look fantastic fly water.
River at good level finally. Wouldnt want to fish it with gauge over 0.8 (ddol fm).

Fished downstream end of beat. Caught 4 grayling to 1.5lb and 6 brown trout to 12ozs from Pemlanole Pool. All fish caught on Snipe and Purple tied with holo purple tinsel body appart from a big grayling on Flashback ptn and 1 trout on pink Czech Nymph. This was the first time that I had ever fished for grayling on the fly so I was very pleased with my day. It was a very beautiful stretch of river, packed with fish and very secluded - I didn't see a soul all day!
This is the first days fishing that I have booked via WUF and it certainly won't be the last. The online booking process was very smooth and straight forwards and the fishing was fantastic.

Very cold day indeed, but the river was in fantastic shape. Clear and at good height. Fishing was difficult with nothing to show for the first couple of hours at our usual go to runs. After spotting a very large spawning salmon thrash around in the shallows at the head of one of the pools, (20lb+), we managed 3 good sized out of season WBT and a couple of small grayling. One of the browns was approx 18". After a move PJ took a few grayling prospecting with a tan klink and I fished a heavy bug under indicator in shallower water that produced 4 or 5 Grayling and the one that got away which i classed as a monster ;-). Good day all round on my favourite fishery of the Foundation. Thank you.

We were very lucky. Heavy overnight rain raised the Irfon, Ithon and Wye at Builth by over 1ft but the Upper Wye only rose 3” to a height of 0.62 on the EA gauge at Ddol Farm. The river was clear and very fishable. The weather was mild, which resulted in good hatches of olives in mid-morning and again in the afternoon. Two of us managed about 30 grayling to about 17” and 6 out of season brown trout to 15”. Most of these were caught on small olive dry flies, casting to rising fish. Fishing slowed about 3pm when the sun fell behind the hills. Nice long beat. Great day.

River a little high for good fishing. A dozen grayling and a a few stockie trout. Grayling all taken on deep gold head nymphs mainly in the tails of the pools as too deep to wade in most places. A small trickle of olives during the afternoon and some rising fish in the lower section, though bait anglers on the lower section had them covered better.
Nice beat but needs to be lower than 0.68 on the EA's Ddol Farm guage to give good access. A few salmon sloshed about and evidence of a couple of redds in places.
WUF Note: Craig Llyn is fly fishing only. The lower half is single bank fishing so the bait anglers would have been from the opposite side.