Feedback & Reports

River a little too high but we managed 7 grayling to 16", and one out of season brown. Some on a pink bug but most on dry grayling steel blue. All fish returned.

Last throw for salmon and blanked again. Did have one pull and caught a trout of about a pound at Cillau Falls.

Beat directions in need of a re write. A bit inaccurate in part. Separate note to WUF.

A lovely still autumn day with a few PWs and LDOs but very few rises. Have never fished Ty Newydd when it is quite so high (1' 8") and after it had risen 6" overnight. So, water cool at 13 degrees but running reasonably clear, although appeared a tad murkier over the afternoon. Had 18 grayling of mainly the smaller year classes but a few of 12-13" plus half a dozen small out-of-season browns and quite a few 3-4" graylets. That's the good news - the bad was seeing 7 roosting cormorants on arrival and four goosanders off and on throughout the day (will report to the Angling Trust FEB website). Most fish came to Grayling Steel Blue, one to a Treacle Parkin spider and a few to a skinny tung-headed pink nymph. Hard graft (and "interesting" wading in the slighly murky and pacier than usual water!!). With settled weather and still quite warm, it should fish well over the next few days.

Blanked. First time to this beat. Imagine we could have done with 6" more water and a lot less sunshine. Didn't see or touch any salmon unfortunately. Both really enjoyed our day in stunning surroundings though. Plenty of fishing to go at and I think you do need to make the most of both banks.

One small out of season brown trout caught on a size 16 "red neck" (i.e. a PTN with a red collar). He was subsequently released. I also hooked one further trout and, I think, a grayling, but unfortunately could not land either. Beautiful scenery and very helpful directions to find it. I recommend this beat.

Bring on the Indian Summer if this is what is going to happen - sunny and hot all day but pretty breezy too from mid-morning until late afternoon. Early stonefly, a few PWs but none of yesterday's olives seen further up the river at Abernant. Very few rises; mainly oncers. However, we managed to catch 42 grayling between us (but very few trout). Most grayling taken on emerger patterns irrespective of whether they were rising or non-rising fish. Flies included HE, olive and PW emergers and Grayling Steel Blue (about 1/3 of all emerger-caught fish taken on this pattern). L's catch, whilst fishing duo, also included eight grayling taken on a tiny, gold tung-headed pink nymph whilst D, less productively at this time, slavishly persevered with emergers (the benefit of ringing the changes)! Fish from 8-12 inches, and a significant number in the 13-15 inch class. A good day to reward L's journey from the Dee.

Lovely day with fish rising on arrival around 11am and continued but slowed, through the day. 4 grayling and 1 small wild brown between the two rods - none taken. Biggest was grayling of around 1lb. Fish taken on dry fly, spider and gold-head nymph patterns in fast and slow water.

Great day. No fish seen or caught.

12 trout to 14 inches and 5 grayling to 12 inches. All on dry fly on a blustery day with sporadic hatches and fish rising only during short periods of sunshine. The river was in good condition with a slight tinge from recent rain.

Sunshine and storm on the upper Wye! A blustering wind, patches of sun between cumulous clouds, and a short, sharp, 5 minute shower coming regularly every half hour all through the day. More sustained and heavy rain set in before dusk. Almost no rises all day. Just one good grayling came up for a yellow may imitation at the beginning to get me encouraged (a oncer, let's say a twicer because he went for the artificial also), but then came off at the net. That was the only grayling I saw in the session. Otherwise, lots of mostly small trout and parr were in evidence, prepared to tweak away at spiders in the runs, but they wanted the flies either worked downstream and across or weighted down with a nymph on the point position. Not a very interesting way of fishing, but that was all the action I could get. (DC of W Herefordshire would be amused to know that I took no less than 3 rods down to the river, each made up for a different method, from dry fly to heavy bugs...but the grayling showed their contempt for all the money spent at Sportfish by staying well away). 13 x trout 6-12 inches.

Incidentally, referring to DC's report from Cefn Rhosan Fawr a few days ago about goosanders, the word in the pub at Sennybridge (for what it is worth) is that locals have been seeing very large numbers of these birds, particularly during recent winters. The theory is that these predators have pretty good hunting on the upper Usk and its tributaries in the upland area above Brecon, because so many of the pools have rocky bottoms without tree root cover for the fish to escape into.