Feedback & Reports

1 Grayling, 3 Barbel, 3 Chub

5 Barbel, 11 Chub

Pleasant day, river high and coloured, just a single Chub caught close in on meat.

1 Chub

Lovely to be back on the Usk again, although good grief the water was cold! That was quite tough below waist level as you have to wade a lot here, the water is still pretty high and cold and the winter floods have carved out some pretty deep holes in a couple of places that were previously easy wading near the banks. Above waist level great though, especially as I got to try out a bamboo Granger Special 8.5 I found over winter - my feet may have been numb but casting that sent a tingle up my spine, a rod over 75 years old and it still casts so sweetly. Perfect fishing tool, those old rod-builders really knew what they were doing (and while it may be just a tad heavier, far superior to any graphite I've ever fished with!). Not much hatching so the fishing was slow, but there were just a few LDOs and march browns trickling off in the early afternoon and while those brief hatches were on I managed to catch two - the best a nice one of 14.5" caught off the top on a March brown CDC Emerger to start the season in style!

Fish were in decent condition, only a little lean after winter. Interestingly the bigger one had lost about half a cm of it's lower caudal fin from sitting on the bottom over winter, and also had a long, perfect V-mark on it's shoulder (see photo); the latter must have been an old wound from a fishing bird (cormorant seen on the water today as well!), but completely healed.

Thanks for a lovely day out, great to be out on the Usk again after the long winter!

2 Trout

River unfishable due to the persistent rains - so much so even the fishing hut was battened down.
Needless to say dawn on the river was magical and it was a pleasure to be back.
Piscator non solum piscatur.

3 Pike

Cold and rainy.

2’1 on the gauge this morning. River dropping fast and clearing nicely. Only spent 4 hours on the water today, covering all main pools with heavy tubes. No sign of an early runner though.

2 Trout

No fish hooked or caught. Water still high and better suited to Salmon fishing than Trout. Fished just below the town bridge and then walked down river to the shingle island but found the floods had washed the bank and fence away making it impossible to fish the right bank in this area. There is now a 10ft shear cliff edge with the barbed wire fence in the river and no way of getting down to the water.

A beautiful day greeted me, the river had a good flow and was crystal clear. Only the odd fly hatched certainly not enough to get the fish looking up. Unfortunately they didn’t appear to be looking down either.
Tried hard to no avail, nil return.
I’ll be back!!