Feedback & Reports

Given the unusual wind-free weather forecast, I decided that I must try to cash in and so went to Abernant for the day, and fished the evening, hoping for spinner fall, on the Gwent AS waters , on the Usk above Gilwern. It proved to be a most interesting and productive day in spite of unabated sunshine and 26 degrees. There were very few risers in the morning , some midge and the odd pulse of sedges and PWs. I started fishing duo and had three fish on a small HE nymph (Louis Noble's Special One) and rose a couple on the HE parachute. Having also seen a rise, and thought that the fish must be looking up, I changed to a single HE emerger (size 16/14 HE parachute or size 18 HE Duck's Dun) and had seven more grayling, mainly 8-10" but two of 12 and 14", and a 12" trout. A good start! Using the same flies in the afternoon, I ended up with 31 grayling on the day. Most were 8-10 inch fish, but a couple more 12 -13" fish were added in the afternoon, when more of the fish caught were dimpling risers, but the majority on the day weren't rising at all. At this time of year and into the autumn, these flies work for me because grayling are often feeding on small surface-active nymphs. I have also found that 18-20 sizes of this HE parachute are very effective when fish get on to midge. The Usk proved very interesting. To my amazement, when I arrived at about 7.15, I found the river literally covered in dimpling rises. The river was covered in ants!!!!! Unfortunately I had only met the end of the rise (curses!) as they had all passed through by about 7.45 and the rise stopped. In spite of a break off and having to set up the front end again, I managed to catch four lovely 12-14 inch fish. The fly I used was surprisingly (?) totally refused once the rise ceased. I couldn't rise a fish with it. After that I had a couple on Paul Procter's rusty spinner. Not a bad day, though being greedy, I'd have really wanted to have fished the whole ant fall. A fellow GAS member saw flying ants in Cardiff yesterday and fish rising at Chainbridge on the way home. Amazing how synchronised across such a wide area, ant-flying is. Anyone lucky enough to have caught all of this ant fall (grrrrr!) must have filled their boots! I mustn't complain though - a great day out and about.

3 Trout, 31 Grayling

16 Rainbows, mainly on Pheasant Tail Nymphs. Damselflies and Daddy-Long-Legs on the south side at the deep end.

16 Trout, 2 Other

Method used was dryfly and Nymph.
River on the bones! Very very low.There were stretches where virtually the whole of the riverbed was dry. Never seen it like this before and I have fished this river since '72.

A wonderful day for a picnic in the Black Mountains, but not the weather to try to catch trout; brilliant sunshine and very hot. So it was T shirt and shorts, with thigh waders. 4pm - 8pm.

As expected, the water flow was at least 8 inches below what might be adequate, but under the canopy the world was much cooler, and there was always plenty of shade. I put up a size 16 Tups, since there were plenty of pale wateries in evidence, and edged my way up the beat; casting blind into likely spots, but also covering an occasional rise.

While the Tups looked just the job, the T shirt proved an error of judgement - not just because of vulnerability to stinging nettles and brambles when adopting an occasional approach on all fours; but more tiresomely I proved highly attractive to horse flies! And I only succeeded in scaring the fish. Then near the top of the beat I saw a few ovipositing females, so changed to a Sherry Spinner at 6.50pm. It appeared rather a mouthful, but in the space of half an hour attracted three small trout, who more or less hooked themselves with greed.

This is an outstandingly beautiful beat, to which I hope to return. The access and wading are comparatively straightforward, and all but the odd corner is fishable with an 8ft rod.

3 Trout

swim feeder and pellets
river very low

2 Barbel, 3 Chub

Staying at and Fishing the Cwm irfon beat we fished on the Sunday 16th and then again on Wednesday 19th. Myself and friends have fished this beat 5 times in the last 6 years. We rent one of the cottages that Giles and Karin Palmer have at beautiful Cwm Irfon for a week and fish the many waters available in the Upper Wye catchment. For the first couple of years on the Irfon the river seemed bereft of a substantial head of B. Trout and Grayling and was extremely disappointing....but being aware of the work that the Foundation was doing to compensate for the devastating effect of afforestation on the upper Irfon valley we persisted over the years during our visits and a slow but steady improvement was seen in the health of the rivers. This year, fishing in good conditions, reasonable coloured water and with a light upstream breeze we had 9 Brown Trout, numerous Parr and a remarkable 33 Grayling; most of which needed to be brought to hand with a net...a substantial number of the Grayling were in the 1lb to 1.5lb range ( a heavier fish was sadly lost). So the credit that must be given to the Foundation, in my opinion, is immeasurable....a very big pat on the back goes to all who work there. Interestingly the most successful patterns were north country spider patterns ( particularly Partridge and Orange and Snipe and Purple) whereas on the dry front the killer fly was the Dry Simon. Success was also had on the dry with a Black Klinkhammer. We'll be back next year....this I know becuase we've already booked our week in July 2018!!!!

9 Trout, 33 Grayling

River was very low and clear. Fished the upper swims. Fish were caught on pellet feeder

3 Barbel, 2 Chub

Cracking day was expecting more barbel as it’s the 16th but we can all dream lol ???? cracking day as I fished the fast runs got what I came for so a well happy man ???? river was realy low could do with a couple of days rain see you soooooooon ????????

1 Trout, 1 Grayling, 3 Barbel, 30 Chub

3 Chub