Feedback & Reports

Warm sunny day with cloudy intervals and very little wind, river seemed to be running low and clear.

On arrival there were fish rising so we both started on dries, my fishing partner moving upstream from the first parking spot and me going downstream and starting by the Usk gauge.

I then spent a good three hours carefully presenting everything in my box to rising fish without a single take. I did manage to finally get a bite and hook it, only to have it come off when it swam towards me and I didn't keep the line tight enough.

A quick call to MB who told me that he's had three fish two small and one about a pound and a half. I asked him if he was on dries, and he said that he was but that he wasn't casting upstream to them he was getting all of his fish downstream??

I couldn't figure this out so made my way up still casting at showing fish without a take. When I finally caught up with him I figured out what he meant, he was actually casting a black ant slightly upstream and then letting line out then allowing the submerged fly to swing. He isn't that experienced at fly fishing and didn't know that what he was basically doing was swinging his flies down and across, and because he was using a dry fly to his mind he was still dry fly fishing.

After a couple of hours I should have realised that I was never going to temp these rising fish and switched tactics, instead I persevered. What makes matters worse is that this isn't the first time I've done this, this season.

4 Trout

3 small trout to about 8" on a Klinkhammer. Very few signs of fish feeding despite a Mayfly hatch.

3 Trout

Very busy and probably drove fish out - Fly fished down the very far end but no fishing moving - caught 2 small perch and released. Disappointing considering the conditions looked ideal.

2 Other

Mild day, wind, no rises seen 12.00 - 19.00 dry fly only, two decent trout caught and returned

2 Trout

2 Trout

The odd fish showing but only 1 trout taken on dry fly. The rest all on bead head nymphs or emergers taken sub-surface. Twaite shad (a first) up to 2lbs. Plenty of fry observed in the margins.

3 Trout, 1 Grayling, 4 Other

A truly beautiful beat, which I was trying for the first time. Similar in some ways to Fenni Fach. The waterfall at the top of the beat is worth the trip. Got there at about 2.30 and stayed til 7.30. Good conditions, warm and cloudy with an only occasional upstream breeze. Tried a little pocket water fishing up from the bottom of the beat using a PTN but no luck. Spent some time at the junction pool casting to rising fish. I could spy some much bigger fish nosing around the shallows, but no matter how stealthily I repositioned myself, they had always ghosted away by the time I was able to cast to them. I moved up to the top of the beat to explore and eventually caught a couple of small trout in the pool running after the waterfall at the top of the beat. Parachute Adams. A great day, despite the lack of fish caught.

2 Trout

2 Trout

Bright, windy conditions and no sign of anything with an adipose fin!

1 Chub

A delightful stillwater.
Too busy on a sunny Sunday to fish close to the car park nearest the dam but quiet and wild close to the feed rivers.
Only tiddlers on a black gnat but need more than one day to explore this water and the opposite bank looks more remote and interesting.

3 Trout