Feedback & Reports

2 Trout

Walked from the Bridge upstream and caught 4 Brown trout on a mixture of Dry Mayflies and Nymphs.
My knee is not so good so turned back before the end of the beat and intended to fish the deeper pools again on my way back towards the Bridge, Unfortunately these areas were all now occupied by families swimming and using Lilo's in the river.
I came across 4 different groups, the last lot said they would 'not be long' and then I could start fishing!!! apparently they were a family staying in the cottage.
The river at this point was very cloudy from the bathers upstream stirring up the silt.
The beat map clearly shows the stretch of river in front of the cottage should not be fished when the cottage is occupied,
this would make sense if the people staying there actually used this allocated part of the river not part of the fishing beat that I had paid to use.
This a great stretch of the River Lugg but I will not be going back on a hot Saturday In August.

4 Trout

1 Grayling

Conditions were "challenging" with a very low river and barely any surface activity. Found a few fish upstream of the bridge on Euro nymphing tactics. It was still a very enjoyable day in one of my favourite locations.

2 Trout, 6 Grayling

River slightly up and coloured with varied cloud and sun and a range of gnats, medium olives and the odd late mayfly about all day. Amazing to see Redstarts flitting out of the riverside bushes and catching the mayflies in mid air. All grayling came to dries, Adams or small hairs ear f-fly, the most respectable sized trout at 12" to a copper headed PTN fished below a Parachute Adams. It is years since I visited this beat and I was amazed at how much the floods had scoured new pools from the small stones and gravel.

2 Trout, 3 Grayling

Tough day, wet, very windy and cold - 3 layer day. River as low as I have ever see it.
Concentrated on few sections where fast water and a bit of depth met.
Wasted a few hours downstream of bridge. Nothing and no signs of any fish.
Moved upstream, chopped and changed dry flies and eventually had 3 wet up to 10" and 1 grayling of about 12".
Were a few flies hatching but only the occasional rise.
Packed up early - cold and wet through.
Have fished Lyepole many times over the years ( was JSM from Kingsland) and I have to say it does fail to meet expectations everytime I fish here.
Not good value compared to Wye and Usj beats.
But I will say all WUF water much better value and more productive than Arundel Arms beats!
Back to the hordes in Devon now and back to targeting bass - lures not flies I am afraid.

3 Trout, 1 Grayling

2 Trout, 2 Grayling

I fished this beat with my brother-in law (Richard). This was our first time on the river so we didn't quite know what to expect with respect to river levels or good access points.
On arrival, it was overcast but dry and very little wind. During the afternoon it commenced to drizzle and this developed into a heavy downpour for about 1 1/2 hours. Eventually the rain cleared and the day ended with glimpses of the sun in between cloudy spells.
The river level appeared quite low. During the morning, there were the odd fish taking large mayflies. I initially fished the beat starting at the bridge and fished with a goldhead hare's ear nymph and other small nymphs that were in a box of flies that I had been given. I had no takes on any of these.
I then moved upstream to a sharp bend in the river with very high banks on the left-hand side of the river. I crossed the river in the shallows above and fished in the deep pool under the high bank, with a small, brown Klinkhamer. I had a number of rises from smallish fish but didn't connect.
Richard fished the downstream beat. He had a few takes on his goldhead hare's ear and pheasant tail nymphs but didn't connect with any fish.
In the afternoon, we swapped beats. At the end of the afternoon, Richard had landed one trout of about 8 inches in length. Other than a few snatches at my nymphs, I drew a blank.

Finally, we both walked up to the upstream limit and fished below the weir. We had a few more pulls but no fish were hooked.
Although we only landed one fish between us, we loved this beat on the river and its picturesque setting and will definitely return again as soon as possible.
David Woof

1 Trout

Started at about 1300 above the bridge in bright conditions which remained all day. Fished French style nymph experimenting with types but had all the success on green/olive variants of hare’s ear. Had a good sized grayling quickly from the run clear of trees, and after that caught a combination of grayling and brownies as we worked up the beat. Found one nice run about 200m before the weir which was easily open enough to cast and provided a couple of brownies. Nothing else above this point, but not much time spent there either because there was nothing obvious. At 1630 we started to work our way up from the downstream limit. A nice grayling from the pool right on the downstream limit, then nothing for the remainder of the beat up to the bridge.

Had some dinner, and the got back on the water above the bridge again at 2000 and waited to see the fish moving. It took a while to get going but there was a reasonable amount of fly on the water and from 2100 we had a lot of fun stalking and casting to rising fish in among the trees. Very tricky trying to cast below the trees and not landing the line directly above the fish, but any presentation that was half decent generally gave a rise. A lot of strikes that didn’t hook up, probably because of the size of the fish, but three brown trout and one grayling were brought to the net on the dry fly before it was too dark to see. The flys were cdc spinners, size 18, and the colour made no difference, probably because it was just a silhouette by that time. This was not far off small stream fishing with a 6’ 3 weight.

A couple of swimmers, but no trouble. Its a very pretty spot and a nice day out. Think small stream when you go.

5 Trout, 5 Grayling