Feedback & Reports

Washed off!

Caught 3 grayling on a pink shrimp and a squirrel flash back nymph. I parked at the top of the beat with the plan to walk to the bottom and fish up. I found my way blocked by either treacherous wading or steep banks and vegetation. Fell in a couple of times.

3 Grayling

Took a gamble with the river being high but well worth the effort. If I didn't know the beat as well as I do, I'd never have got in the river. But after carefully positioning myself on the shelf, I fished the shallow water under the trees as the gutter was unfishable. Proved the right move with plenty of fish were there avoiding the fast flow. Took some lovely Grayling to 16 inches and a number of trout similar size who clearly did not know what the date was! Testing, but enjoyable days fishing.

5 Trout, 10 Grayling

6 Trout, 6 Grayling

Four good fish all on nymphs the largest was just over 2lb then 2 of around the 1lb mark and another just over half a pound! Really nice beat wading tricky in places.

4 Grayling

River not as low as I was expecting, but it was very clear and full of leaves. Mainly fished bottom end gutter with klink and dink and caught a small grayling and trout, both fish about 10". No other sign of life. Some heavy rain in the afternoon.

1 Trout, 1 Grayling

4 Trout, 2 Grayling

Lovely stretch of river. We started on the lower section dabbling in the gutter and although we scared a couple of good sized fish lingering in the shallows we were unable to tempt anything from the gutter itself. 2 grayling of 10" taken on copper john and hares ear nymph over a gravelly section before moving up to the upper section where we had 2 nice brown trout of 14" and 16" on Black Magic and red tungsten head hares ear. Light was running out as we got to the top and after taking one too many tumbles mid-water we decided to call it a day. Great fun and what a way for my pal to get his first fly fishing experience...a 16" Wye Brown!

2 Trout, 2 Grayling

An very interesting day, albeit not as productive as expected for this time of year. Lovely weather - a light breeze at times, mainly overcast and warm at 18-19 degrees but the water very low at 0.28m on the Ddol Farm gauge. There wasn't too much fly life, just a few small olives, and the odd stonefly and sedge, but enough fallen leaf on the river to get terrestrials onto the surface (lots of little spiders and greenfly on the trees) and fish looking up......or so I thought! However, there were very few rises all day and the grayling were unusually reluctant to rise to standard go-to surface and emerger patterns for this time of year. Nymphs either fished duo or tandem were unsuccessful and just one grayling took a red tag spider. Three trout of 10-14" were taken on a hare's ear emerger as were four grayling of 10-16", the latter a fish of just over 1.5lb. As usual at Doldowlod, the 8-10" year class grayling that seem to predominate further down the river didn't put in an appearance. What was odd was that the water was quite cold at 13 degrees, which surprised me, given day and night air temperatures of late so, somewhat perplexed, I rang Severn Trent this morning who confirmed that, given lack of rainfall and low water, about four times the usual amounts of compensation water are being discharged from the Elan Valley reservoirs. I suspect that this may have been the problem given that Doldowlod is so close to the Elan confluence. Friends who fish the Dee and Severn catchments are always telling me how their fishing is affected at times like this. Bring on the rain please!!

3 Trout, 5 Grayling

Largest grayling approx 1.5lb, all fish to nymph. Nice location but it would have been good to see more surface activity.

1 Trout, 4 Grayling