Feedback & Reports

2 Grayling

Good day on a very high and rising river. By the end of the day I was sat in a few inches of water and that had risen on the path (usually metres above the water level) with the field behind me filling up with water fast. Caught the Wye just right as it burst it's banks today.

6 Barbel

A last minute decision on a beautiful day to get out on the Wye for the first time for weeks, even though the river was clearly going to be at near flood level. I fished likely-looking slacks but was rewarded with only a chub in the three hours I was there. Still, it wasn't a blank and it was certainly a lovely afternoon.

1 Chub

On the 70 mile drive to beat was half-expecting a wash - off after recent poor weather but the clarity was good and the level was fine for wading. 12 degrees, overcast, no rain and a light breeze.
So it all looked good but despite covering most of the beat's length in five hours' fishing with ptn, perdigon, grhe, jig nymphs and red tags the grayling didn't play ball. Had a couple of bumps where I finished in the bridge pool. No fish to the net.
A year ago Wuf had reported a decline in catches after run off incidents upstream from Skenfrith but the most recent catch returns show decent catches of grayling.
Maybe the four wild swimmers I met in the parking area on arrival had scared them away.

2 Barbel

Big and rising coloured river, tough going.

Barbel fell to maggots, chub on cheese and two eels on meat.

1 Barbel, 1 Chub, 2 Other

Fished the lower section of the beat. Got into some good grayling and had a few brown trout as a bye catch. All fish caught on red and black scud imitations.

3 Trout, 8 Grayling

My first visit to the Irfon having recently bought a house in Talybont on Usk. I parked not far from the tiny church near the lower limit of the beat and made my way across the field and walked upstream.

The setup was my old faithful 35 year old, 13 foot, Normark Titan coupled with a free spinning centre pin, 3lb mainline down to a Drake wire stemmed 6x no 4 stick, a 2lb hooklink connected a size 18 fine wire, just enough for 2 maggots. I wanted the bait to get down in what looked a strong flow but to keep the presentation as fine and as balanced as I could. I walked up through the woods and across open sheep fields to the Grandstand pool and looked at the river upstream. It was very turbulent and given that I had limited time I decided I had gone far enough upstream to start my way fishing any near side slack that I could find on my way back down to the church. In the first field as I watched the float intently, it bobbing amongst the ripples, a loud splot, followed by a flash of blue and green rising out of a far bank eddy back to his perch was the sign I was not the only fisher on the beat.

I fished each slack I came to for a few minutes before moving on downstream, feeding a dozen or so maggots with every trot down. 6 small but beautiful brown trout and 5 grayling came to the net before the failing light meant I could see the float no more and I had to make my way up the track, past the church to the car. A couple of slurps of hot tea from the flask was the end to a wonderful day, on one of the most beautiful stretches of river I’ve ever fished.

6 Trout, 5 Grayling

Had a fantastic day’s fishing catching a 12.07oz pike with some wonderful scenery around me.

1 Pike

River rising and temperature dropping throughout the day. Caught 1 cracking Barbel about 7.5lbs around 10.30am.

1 Barbel