Feedback & Reports

5 Grayling

1 Trout, 2 Grayling

1 Trout

Great days fishing on a lovely beat…. Nothing rising all day and had them all euro nymphing. Majority of trout about 8” and grayling similar size too. All caught in the faster water.

9 Trout, 14 Grayling

Lost 3 trout. Probably fished to high in the water. Not 1 surfacing fish all morning. Below bridge very difficult access without waders. Fishes nymphs and spiders.

I fished from 1400-1830, strong winds occasional rain and sunny spells.
I've not been on this beat for a number of years so memories are faded, but it felt like fairly low water. There was something of a milky hue to the water, which I remember from other Lugg beats but hadn't previously associated with this one.
There was some fly life about so I fished all of the streamy water with various CDC mayfly imitations and suspended PTN patterns. No rises to naturals but dozens of splashes from tiny things (2-3”) in the shallow, fast moving water and one small grayling (5"). Aside from that, nothing on the dry. I had another equally small grayling and a tiny trout (4") on the PTN - but only when I fished it across the current and retrieved, there was no interest in anything dead drifted. Given the stream is so small and foliage is intense, there is very little scope to fish across.
Eventually, I realised that the fast, steamy water that I remembered as being full of trout years ago wasn't going to produce anything so I started again and went through the few deep pools in the lower half of the beat with a long leader and heavy nymphs -tricky with a 6' 3wt rod... I don't particularly like that style of fishing but it brought 3 grayling quite quickly, the largest at 14".

Access is good, especially below the bridge. Above the bridge a couple of fallen trees and plenty of vegetation growth make a section of around 50m unfishable, but it's a slow moving flat stretch so didn't feel like a great loss.

1 Trout, 4 Grayling

Tough going today. River low and cloudy. First time fishing here in summer, a lovely private beat but feel it fishes much better in early spring/ autumn.

Lots of fly life but saw only one rising fish all day which I managed to tempt on an Adams dry. All other fish to nymphs.

5 Grayling

The overnight rain - which denied England a well deserved victory in the Old Trafford Test - had put a hit of colour in the river. Not that it appeared to help the fishing; I was half way up to the weir, and wondering what I was doing wrong, before I caught my first Grayling. Curiously, having caught the first fish, I had another 7 from the same run (6 on the way up river, 2 on the way back down). 2 Trout and another Grayling from just below the weir, but slim pickings downstream in the afternoon (this beat requires a rethink; if the cottage is occupied, as it invariably is, there is very little to go at downstream, especially at summer levels)

My other was a Minnow; a 3 inch leviathan, that took a Size 14 Endrick Spider in mid water, and was only landed after an epic battle

3 Trout, 10 Grayling, 1 Other

One brown trout on a Ginger Quill dry fly
9” in length
River summer hight but a little “cloudy “ in
colour

1 Trout