Feedback & Reports

Explored the upper part of this beat and had a good day with 10 grayling caught. I started by taking 3 around 10" in a gravelly run during the morning and then moved upstream to a large pool. I took 7 in quick succession here, all around the 1 pound mark. Successful fly was a brown Klinkhammer, nymphs were ignored. A ducking in the cold water curtailed my visit, otherwise I'm sure I would have caught more. All in all a memorable day.

No sign of any salmon. Switched to grayling fishing late in the day and caught one each of c. 12ozs. Were a few grayling rising to a hatch of very small Duns in the afternoon.

Brown Trout
2x weight unknown, approx 20~25cm each
2x weight unknown, approx 12~15cm each
Grayling
2x weight unknown, approx 20~25cm each
Trees
Not many this time!

I was suitably impressed with my accomodation in Builth Wells as I am with W&U's service - it's great and above all simple to undertsand and book, the interactive map of rivers and beats makes everything very simple.

Something over 40 grayling to 17 inches, half a dozen out of season trout. The majority of grayling at 14 inches, not quite senior class. This was the first really cold morning, misty and 3 degrees first thing, but later it became a most beautiful warm and sunny day. LD and I stayed true to the dry fly, but RE, despite all our teasing, fished Czech nymph style throughout and wiped our eye by catching more than half the fish. I supposed it serves us right for fishing with a man who has been capped for Wales. We caught up just a little in the afternoon as rises began and the traditional dry flies began to work their magic. LD remarked that he could actually see the colours on the fins of grayling as they came up for the fly - there must be something special about the autumn light on the Irfon. The end of a wonderful day was only slightly marred for my friends by hearing about what had happened to Wales in the Rugby. Finally in darkness to Builth for a drink, where people dressed in the red shirt were staring gloomily into their pints and not talking much.

More on waders (see Tuesday 11th October): My apologies, because I caused much confusion when writing about long-lived 4mm neprene waders by Vision. The correct name of these is Vision Sub-Zero, not Vision Extreme - sorry again. Also, it's worth mentioning that even if your breathables are leak-free, you are going to feel pretty clammy and uncomfortable if you spend a few hours in them wearing ordinary cotton trousers, especially jeans. The purpose-made fleece wading trousers are really a must, and I can recemmend the EWS ones by Hardy (which are not as expensive as most things by Hardy). Likewise, when it really gets cold, the specially designed thermal underwear (again, I can recommend Hardy EWS) makes a tremendous difference. Even if you are equipped with all of this and are mad enough to spend a day standing in the Wye in the middle of the winter, chattering teeth and not being able to string a sentence together is a pretty sure sign that it is time to get out! Finally Seth from the WUF advises that for a while he has been using Bison waders at 75 pounds each and gets at least a season's work out of them, which sounds like a pretty good deal.

Beautiful weather and excellent conditions despite bright sunshine at times. Some grayling rising throughout the beat. 30 grayling landed between two rods with the largest three fish a shade under the 2lb mark (also 3 small out of season brown trout). Lots of mink footprints on the bank! Most grayling caught on CDC emerger (size 14 olive) and on size 20 copper tungsten nymph. Great day out on the water - I will be back next year for some more grayling action... and of course the spring for some trout! Thanks WUF!

10 x grayling 10-16 inches, 9 x out of season trout 6-10 inches. Low clouds on the hills and a strong wind blowing downstream all day, colder during the afternoon. The Irfon was much higher than I expected, from more rain on the Cambrian hills I suppose, but running clear. Nothing much rising, but nevertheless it turned out to be a dry fly day. I spent much of the afternoon parked in one spot and dealing with a shoal lying under a very powerful run, over a distance of about 15 or 20 yards, not more. I had great fun trying to bring them up and working my way through a little box marked "traditional grayling dries." Put on a new pattern, one or two grayling would rise, then the shoal would become nervous and no more rises. Put on something different and there would be one or two rises again. Grayling Steel Blue, Red Tag, Treacle Parkin and Yellow Bumble all got the odd fish or two. So did John Storey with its forward-pointing wing, the only one in this collection of size 16 artificials which actually looks much like a natural fly. The white hackled flies, Green Insect and Grayling Witch, designed for the chalk streams, as usual in my experience didn't work here. Best of the bunch was Orange Otter, a fly which has built a reputation over 70 years for bringing up non-rising grayling (and trout), and which accounted for some nice ones at the end. Personally, I believe that the graylings' interest in Orange Otter - and many of these fancy flies and flame tails - is not much to do with imitating fly life, but something to do with exciting curiosity and even, perhaps, aggression. Anybody who fishes nymphs much with an indicator will have had the experience of a grayling rising from the bottom of the river, grabbing a bright orange egg-shaped indicator and taking it down to mouth for several seconds. At times our wild grayling, bless them, can be as curious and naive as newly-stocked rainbows.

Good bags of sizeable grayling on all rods (promptly released) and few Brownies, one over 2lbs (equally released in good shape). Water clearing out after spate, good hatches after 14:00, persistent when lull of wind.

The day after fished Wye at Doldowlod, very disappointing for colder water and windy condition, minor hatches, but we spotted a wonderful coloured cock salmon around 20 pounds (1 meter long!, no kidding!)

10 x grayling 8-15 inches, 10 x out of season trout 7-13 inches, fishing various dries all day. A drop of 10 degrees from the previous day, cold downstream wind, lowering clouds and weather front coming on. Very few fish rising and during the morning everything I had a go at turned out to be a trout. A few grayling turned up after lunch, but very much the junior class, fish of 9 and 10 inches. Only the last 3 grayling around 3 o'clock were decent ones, 14 and 15 inches. So why didn't you fish a nymph instead of persevering on the surface, I can hear you ask? I am not quite sure except that we are going to be bugging of necessity when the real cold weather arrives and fishing that way through the winter without any choices...I do like a few days with the dry fly in October if I can possibly get them!

The weather had cooled off considerably from the previous few days of Indian summer, although there were still fish rising to sedges and stone flies. Six fish caught; four grayling from 12" to 16" (the latter estimated at around 1.75 lb) and two out of season trout. All fish were caught on dries, mostly traditional patterns (double badger and red tags). Tried Czech nymphs in the rougher water, but didn't manage any takes.

Bright, very hot but a nice breeze around the middle of the day bringing plenty of leaves off the trees plus, no doubt, accompanying food to titillate Salmonid taste buds (in contrast not many falling leaves at Ty Newydd yesterday)! Not much fly life but some irregularly rising fish on and off during the day. Both rising and non-rising fish were all taken on olive and HE emerger patterns, and on Grayling Steel Blue; 27 grayling and two trout. Lots of grayling in the 13-15" class and L also lost a clonker which put a serious bend in his cane rod and silk line - absolutely gutted! But what a cracking day - let's hope for continued relatively stable weather and more good grayling days this autumn.