Feedback & Reports

Good day on the water. Decent wind brought some terrestrials onto the water and reasonable success given the very very low water. About 30 fish caught in total biggest 1lb brown trout. Some out of season grayling. Wye looking beautiful as ever...Czech nymphing (caddis patterns), NZ style (klink, hawthorn, black gnat, elk caddis)and size 18 skinny nymph and PTN and GRHE.
Pray to the rain gods to improve fishing prospects!

A beautiful beat on the Upper Wye, which was less productive than I had expected. It was a windy day with bright sun; very few fish were rising so I fished mainly with nymphs. One had to work hard for the fish - 5 were caught and returned (2 trout which were less than 1/2 lb each, 2 small grayling and one salmon smolt). A better fish was hooked and lost after a brief tussle. However, it was a lovely day in beautiful countryside.

Mixture of trout and grayling to mainly nymphs. Best trout around 30cm. Rising fish seem to be taking black gnat, a few sedge about early in the morning. Interesting days fishing fish mainly in the faster broken water.

Lots of salmon smolts still evident in desperate need of some water to get them to sea!!!

The day started with a glorious drive from the Rumney valley to meet Frank Williams and a small number of other anglers for a days instruction in wet fly fishing techniques on this stretch of the Upper Wye.

I arrived at my destination for 09:20 and briefly introduced myself to the other members of the party before Frank demonstrated some of his tackling up methods. Even at this stage I was picking up tips and it was quite obvious how Frank had picked up his "Pro" status. Some casting tuition followed and we were led towards the river around midday.

Despite the strong sunshine and very low water levels quite a few fish appeared to be moving. Frank demonstrated the "Across and down" method of fishing a team of flies that included a small copper head PTN on the point, partridge spider on the middle dropper and a traditional wet on the top dropper.

On our first solo session using this method I managed 2 X brown trout of 6 and 10 inches. The set-up also attracted the intrest of a few other fish but none were brought to hand.

Our second demonstration took place in faster water and was based around fishing wet flies/nymphs, upstream on a shortened line. Frank only managed to winkle out a few small fish during this period which I was really surprised about as the stretch in question looked very fishy.

The rest of the group led by Frank headed back to the car park for a spot of lunch. Meanwhile, armed with my new found knowledge I carried on fishing. I'd swapped my rig to some heavily weighted PTN's and tied a killer bug to the point. Working the deeper channel just downstream of where Frank had given his demo an 11inch grayling and 1 other small WBT were brought to hand.

At the top end of the beat another small WBT was caught using this method before I called it a day at approx 4:30pm.

Altold it was a very enjoyable day and I would certainly recommend Frank's services to anglers of all abilities wishing to develop their fishing knowledge.

Bright sunny day with temperature in 20's on arrival!
Both rods adopted traditional wet fly - team of three flies - tactics with more success in the morning than afternoon.
One rod had two trout and lots of parr and the other 4 trout (2 @ c.14") and one grayling (12") and lots of parr.
Fabulous surroundings but hard fishing in such low water-levels.

Warm and sunny, river very low, just a dribble of fly life. No, not August but the middle of April. No really, what's going on!
In these poor conditions I was grateful for a fun and productive day. Keeping to the faster, broken water took 11 wbt and 1 out of season grayling. Typical wildies, 6"-10", all returned unharmed. Every fish fell to the weighted point fly (gold head ptn, green). No fish caught on my dropper (spider variants). Strange, my point and dropper usually share the fish.
There seems to be a really good head of trout on this beat and I know from experience that it is stuffed with grayling later in the year.
Thanks as ever to the WUF.

A superb few hours, fishing from 11am until 3.45pm. Caught over 30 fish, with a mixture of trout, grayling and some parr. Most caught on a nymph, but for about 30 mins during a rise of LDO's caught some on an olive emerger pattern.
Largest fish was a very nice 20 inch trout, which fought like a tiger in the fast water.

2 rods fishing. About 20 fish caught. A mixture of trout and grayling. Largest trout about 13 inches. Caught on klinkhamers and nymph fished under a klinkhamer. Day was mixture of sun and cloud.

We missed the glorious weather by a week, the temperature returned to the normal April cool / cold. There was however some hatching activity but very few fish showing. I caught 2 Grayling (on one cast), they obviously didn't know they were out of season. One small brownie at the end of an excellent day.

Another great days fishing. A couple of dozen Trout to about a pound. Olives making an appearance throughout the day. Plenty of grannom comming back to egg lay though I didnt see any hatching.

Fish came to both dries and nymphs during the day, mainly in the faster water. Fish were active all day despite the relentless bright sunshine....role on May.