Feedback & Reports

An evening fishing the Usk for the first time this year. The river here does shift around a bit but the winter floods have changed things a lot especially towards the bottom end. New deep pots have appeared which may well hold salmon in the right conditions. The enormous black Poplar tree trunk in the river is a testament to the force of the water at the time. A great beat for bird life this with lots of sandpipers, plovers, sand martins and kingfishers. Fishing was good too. Two on the nymph before the rise began at around 8.30. Three more to small emergers and several lost.

5 Trout

5 Trout

1 Minnow fairly caught on size 18 dry fly.
The beat is getting very overgrown with backside vegetation so fishing can be difficult. Not much can be done about that except wade through the nettles ect. One word of warning in the field you have to cross there are bullocks which may be a bit intimidating.
There was very little hatching so only an occasional fish rising. I suspect we are between fly seasons. The main sedge hatch has not yet started and there were no significant hatches of upwing flies. The main fly in evidence were tiny midges. I managed to get 3 or 4 fish to rise to a dry fly and caught one of them. It was not a very large trout. There were no grayling in evidence.

1 Trout, 1 Other

The half inch of rain on Friday evening hasn't made a lot of difference with the water level still very low. Humid overcast conditions,a few small olives hatching in the morning and a few Mayfly around lunch time. Fished Tenkara and size 12 killer kebari. 6 trout 8 to 12 inches.

6 Trout

Escaped for a couple of hours late this afternoon after being stuck at home due to a heavy mornings rain and a stint on the wife's job list. Managed to fool 5 of various sizes all on black klinkhammers, all safely returned. Missed loads of takes I think it's my age. What a joy to find easy parking and a lacking of barbed wire.

5 Trout

Nothing caught today, I did see three rises so they are there.

Saw two salmon! Caught one chub and one small roach.

1 Chub, 1 Other

Did not fish, very little flow in stream and overgrown

Any river is fishable with sufficient guile and effort, I thought; I was wrong.
Starting at the middle bridge, Escley brook is encouraging, a rock bed with water tumbling over it. The canopy is thick & low and once into the stream it is very difficult to get out. Watergates are fairly frequent though these have been softened up by the winter floods and surprisingly deep pools lurk in hidden corners. It is all but impossible to cast, probably fortunate as there is no room to play a fish, though this is an entirely theoretical cavil as there appear to be none; any trout would need a white stick to find its way in the murk. I finally emerged onto a bank which was impassable and recrossed in a pool sufficiently deep to find a significant tear in my waders. .
Bloody, wet, mildly cross & fishless, with a snapped top section and sunglasses a sacrifice to the local river deity, I sqwelched back to the parking place.
There are compensations, it is lovely out-of-the way side valley and views from the top on a warm summer's evening are balm, not just to the bramble scratches and wire cuts but to one's whole being. It provides a necessary contrast to those days when the fish have read all the right books and appear in the right places and in just sufficient numbers to keep an excitement through the whole day, even condescending, no doubt from politeness, to take the proffered fly.
The Escley conceals its charms so well that I for one am unlikely to rush back to enjoy them, though the pub further up has a local reputation for the quality of its beer, so when the current nonsense is over I may just have to go back and check.

Warm, mixed skies, pretty still, with a good amount of insect life around. A few mayfly stragglers, but mainly on to the BWOs/other small upwings now. Dries, nymphs and small streamers all caught, mostly 8" ish, a couple up to 12", all feisty fish in great condition. Photo a typical example - bright colours and distinct remaining parr makrs. An enchanting mallard family company and regular flypasts from the kingfisher capped a wonderful afternoon and evening.

25 Trout