Feedback & Reports

Level still high (above 0.8 on Cilmery gauge) and coloured. I fished for a couple of hours but struggled . I'm getting too old for deeper wading. Fish caught on weighted nymphs.

1 Trout, 1 Grayling

Fished the beat with a good friend, and chose this beat so we could fish without getting in each others way.
Very low and clear water, combined with bright sunshine made for a very tough day. Wading was tough as the rocks were all covered with brown slime and algae.
Several fish seen, including a particularly large trout.
I finally managed the only fish of the day when I spotted a small rise, I cast a black clinkhammer to it and was rewarded with a feisty 10 inch fish.
Lovely beat but really needs some water.

1 Trout

0.3m on the gauge so gin clear and plenary of access to the water. Much colder today and Sod’s law it was the day we decided to go. Good hatches in early after noon with a constant hatch of upswing flies, but only saw 3 fish rise all day.
Nice day though and saw 2 Pied Flycatchers!

I thought I would try my luck on a very cold and blustery day (max. 9C air temperature - with the water even colder!). I tried dry flies, emergers, and nymphs (even tungsten weighed perdigon nymphs) without success. The only take I had was during a ten minute burst of surface activity (a hatch of blue winged olives) - I was so surprised I missed it (on a cdc thingy)! I was fishing an 8'6" 3wt rod with a 9'-12' tapered leader. Lots of lovely daffodils, wood anemone, and celandine flowers and dippers seemingly everywhere. I'll return on a warmer day.

My first visit to the Irfon having recently bought a house in Talybont on Usk. I parked not far from the tiny church near the lower limit of the beat and made my way across the field and walked upstream.

The setup was my old faithful 35 year old, 13 foot, Normark Titan coupled with a free spinning centre pin, 3lb mainline down to a Drake wire stemmed 6x no 4 stick, a 2lb hooklink connected a size 18 fine wire, just enough for 2 maggots. I wanted the bait to get down in what looked a strong flow but to keep the presentation as fine and as balanced as I could. I walked up through the woods and across open sheep fields to the Grandstand pool and looked at the river upstream. It was very turbulent and given that I had limited time I decided I had gone far enough upstream to start my way fishing any near side slack that I could find on my way back down to the church. In the first field as I watched the float intently, it bobbing amongst the ripples, a loud splot, followed by a flash of blue and green rising out of a far bank eddy back to his perch was the sign I was not the only fisher on the beat.

I fished each slack I came to for a few minutes before moving on downstream, feeding a dozen or so maggots with every trot down. 6 small but beautiful brown trout and 5 grayling came to the net before the failing light meant I could see the float no more and I had to make my way up the track, past the church to the car. A couple of slurps of hot tea from the flask was the end to a wonderful day, on one of the most beautiful stretches of river I’ve ever fished.

6 Trout, 5 Grayling

5 Trout, 5 Grayling, 1 Chub

5 Trout, 10 Grayling, 2 Chub

Hooked a salmon around 8-9lb on a goldhead nymph. Played it for about 10 mins and it released itself. One out of season brownie. No grayling to be seen anywhere. This beat used to be full of fish. I’ve fished this beat twice this year now and not a sign of a Grayling. I think some investigation work needs to be carried out. I won’t be returning anytime soon.
Lovely day out though.

1 Salmon, 1 Trout

Early rain followed by a gloomy day but just great to be back here. A few hours trotting, mainly half pounders but 1 big lady made my day.

3 Trout, 8 Grayling

No fish today, despite seemingly better conditions than yesterday (with an extra 4" of water and zero leaves). Just shows that "forget the forecast" is very true... I shall be back next year :)