Feedback & Reports

River rose ++ by 1pm and left. Should be good 31 May

5 Trout

A fine day weather wise, although a strong, gusting wind made casting difficult at times.
Lots of small fish moving but we failed to land more than 2. We did see a fresh run salmon of about 8lb jump in the Abernant pool.

1 Trout, 1 Grayling

This return covers both single rod bookings.
One of our favourite venues – and we were on a mission, more of which later. Today was a soft day with a fairly stiff breeze and plenty of airborne insects, but not too many seen hatching. Rising fish mostly oncers with a few more persistent and compliant specimens – 10 came to hand, best one 14 inches.
This stretch of river is always excellent for wildlife and we had woodpeckers, herons and kites – but best of all were the kingfishers, not fazed by our presence at all and put on an excellent display of courting behaviour and flight.
Back to the mission. We are aware of a very significant fish on this beat – not the very early silver tourist that was seen in residence yesterday but an absolutely clonking brownie ensconced in a challenging lair. We had deduced that our best chance would be in the Mayfly season and were hopeful yesterday, but the behemoth was nowhere to be seen and there were very few mayfly any way. So we fished on until the evening when in the next pool up from the lair James hooked a 6 inch tiddler which bounced around a bit as they are wont…until his weight 4 rod suddenly bent double and retrieval became a significant challenge. Turned out the behemoth has left his lair for this pool and had decided that a 6 inch trout would be a very acceptable supper. He was on for about 15 seconds before he let go and continued to follow the tiddler until he was lifted to safety. Estimated weight – conservatively a 4lb fish. What a clonker! Next time perhaps….

10 Trout

1 lb lovely brownie. A few other small trout jumping. Lovely evening.

1 Trout

River is low and clear. Trout are in the deeper parts of the pools towards the head. Lots of trout are chasing mayflies.
Caught a few on mayfly patterns but most came to the nymph fished deep. Very nice day on the river with plenty of nice trout caught.

10 Trout

All on dry fly. Perfect conditions....warm, overcast, not too windy, water slightly above normal height, very clear. Olives hatching throughout the day.

5 Trout

Really sad situation currently on lower Wye with the Algae. This was my fourth time fishing this amazing beat over the last few years. The first time a few years back we had clean low water and I got lucky in the neck of Cadora and we also saw lots of smolts migrating downstream that evening. The three trips since in prime time late May or early June we have had the Algae bloom which has seriously limited prospects and everything just looks deathly ill! Such a shame as we were staying locally in a holiday cottage and my wife and young daughter aged 7 joined me this time for a few casts and thankfully they both saw a few Salmon leap out the water which was an amazing experience to share together and there was huge excitement being able to cover them with a fly and my daughter even managed to lob a flying C at them but they did not respond in the filthy soup mess. Left at midday wondering if my daughter will ever get a chance to catch a Salmon the way things are going.
Interestingly I fished the lower Usk on Tuesday and Friday this week and obviously very low (and lacking in Salmon numbers this year) but the water was beautifully clear.
Thank you all for allowing/arranging access to an amazing fishery but so sad to see the water quality so bad where fishing effort is almost useless. Where would you go on holiday next year?

Evening session. Hatch just petering out as I arrived, but some spinner activity.

2 Trout

Great 2 days of fishing! First time on the Wye. Couple of takes only. Big learning curve not least the absolute necessity of a wading stick if you want to stay vertical! Will definitely be back to fish this beautiful water.

2 Trout