Feedback & Reports

River had cleared nicely but the water was very cold and there was a howling downstream wind which made any thought of fishing upstream out of the question. Nevertheless, there was an appreciable olive hatch from about 1pm which continued sporadically into the afternoon. I saw 3 fish rise (in total) and I connected at least briefly with all of them on spiders and landed one, a 14" beauty (returned). I had no success at all fishing blind.

Having sorted out the problems from the day before, we very much enjoyed our day on this beat. Extremely cold wind blew all day which put fish off from feeding on the surface and made for a hard days fishing anyway. My son caught two trout, the largest of approx 1lb. Both returned. Again, many thanks for all your help and advice. We will be back later in the year.

Fishing conditions difficult with a cold northerly breeze (max temp 8C). Few fish rising. 8 fish caught beween .5 and 2.5lb. 2 fish on dry fly the others on nymphs. 2 fish kept (1lb and 2.5lb).

Arrived about 10:00am. Slow start with first success at about 12:00 with two fish on F Fly. Followed by more on Klink and Dink. LDO hatch brought more dry fly takes with a total of about 30 fish from 6" to a 1lb. These on PTN and Sparse Olive patterns. Hatch came to an end. Just about to depart at 5:00pm when we noticed fish starting to sip at the surface. These turned out to small, willing and plentiful on small midge patterns. Ended the day with over 60 fish caught and returned, the predominant size was around 8". A very different fishing experience than we expected.

Bright, sunny but cold on arriving-warming up to 16C during the afternoon. We caught two lovely fish of 2lbs and 3lbs in the morning from the fast riffles at the bottom of the beat. After lunch we caught 3 fish of about 1lb each and two small fish on the stretch between the car park and the bridge - nothing above the bridge.
We fished a double nymph set-up with a weighted ptn on the tail and a small hares ear on the dropper. Nearly all fish took the dropper fly. A variety of flies were hatching throughout the day, but the trout were not interested. A really lovely day on this glorious beat.

It felt more like the end of Feb rather than the end of March, cold NE wind. Really nice beat but not sure what to do on the big long glide with nothing rising, but some lovely water. I understand it was lower than normal but my last visit here was mid summer in 2010, so to me it looked a lot better. Nothing happened until 2:30 ish when the wind dropped, some flies coming of the water then frantic half hour saw three fish landed around 1.5lb, missed another three or four. All fish returned. All caught on a Parachute Adams. The wind returned and the fish disappeared, but three nice fish , cant be bad for a days fishing.

Nil return. Lots of trout seen.

A day on the Usk with a beginner to river fishing. Met up with Martin around 10 am and after an hour on casting techniques we headed down to the bottom of the beat. As we sat watching the pool discussing rivercraft and the merits of various techniques a hatch of March Browns began. The fish were on to them immediately. After A couple of missed fish due to to quick a strike it was fish on but unfortunately off again before we got it to the net. The hatch petered out by 12.30 and due to the wrm sunny day never really got going again. The rest of the day was spent covering various methods and one fish was caught and a few more missed. The river was very low and as clear as I have ever seen it. Stealth and fishing from ones knees are advisable in these conditions.
Saw several FEBs through out the day, I hope we don't have a repeat of last year when on a single day I counted over 20 mergansers on this beat.

Great beat. Fished it last Friday. The owner has had wooden steps cut to take you from where you should park down to the river. The area near there is pretty much all good. It was around 10C so bearable. I took a trout on spider pattern before switching to dries when the rise started at around 11.30. Caught 4 more on dries (and my partner caught two more on dries) between then and 3.30pm (ish) when the rise primarily to dark olives stopped. There was also a short flush hatch (of March Browns I believe) at around 12.30. I say this because the same thing happened the next day on a different beat and time I knew it was March Browns. All 7 trout (1/2 to 3/4 lb) returned. Great day fishing thank you.

The conditions were more like summer than late winter/early spring. It was a truly fantastic day to be in the Usk valley. There was a variety of fly life around with at least 5 species of upwinged fly on the water (I even saw a couple of mayfly?), but no significant number of any species. The trout also failed to respond to them and I only saw 6 rises all day and these were all oncers. All covered but nothing raised.

Fishing the duo did pay off though and I took 2 fish on a goldhead HE of 1lb & 1 1/2lb from the pool above the A40 bridge.

Fishing towards the end of the day with a nymph in a fast glide in the middle of the rapids near the bottom of the beat I hooked what felt like a monster. It surged off powerfully and repeatedly, fighting deep and not showing itself. After 5 - 10 mins of making little impression on the fish and several hairy moments I was starting to get very excited, I'd still not seen the fish and I was even questioning whether it might be a salmon. However eventually I managed to steer it into slacker water near the shore and rather than the 5lb monster Usk brown I'd been anticipating there was a fish of about 1 1/2 foul hooked in it's back. A beautiful fish but something of an anticlimax.

Will definitely be back on the Usk soon.