Feedback & Reports

Lovely spring day but the water a bit low. My friend had a strong pull in the Vanstone and I had to settle for a good chub to a Willie Gun at the bottom of the Maddox pool.

1 Chub

No signs of active fish. Cold wind prevailed in the early morning until just before midday, when the modest cloud cover disappeared to yield a very bright day. Fishing conditions far from ideal.

Difficult day with bright sun and blustery downstream wind. Lovely place. 4 trout, 4 O/O/S Grayling

4 Trout, 4 Grayling

4 x trout 10-18 inches. Another cold start and again the cold downstream wind. Will it ever stop? Actually a difficult day with few fish rising, although olive uprights and various other insects were about. What made it all worth while was a super hen trout of 18 inches which took a size 16 Deer Hair Sedge. It was a lovely looking thing, the best I can remember from this beat, and made some very determined attempts to get me into the alder roots before I netted it. This fish would have made a lovely photograph. However, measured it in the net, got the hook out, lifted it slightly while I brought the camera up to take the shot, upon which it suddenly jack-knifed on my hand and was gone. I can see some friends of mine are going to rib me about this. No really chaps, you should have seen it.... Nice chat with another rod from Oxford who was surprised to catch a large chub.

4 Trout

2 Trout

Very pleasant day, wind not too much of a problem. Despite a good hatch no trout were rising, I decided to go with surface flies as I could not believe the fish would ignore plentiful food all day. At about 1.00 the trout did look upwards, not many rises but they were looking at my grey baetis para. Eventually landed 5 (5" to 11"), lost 3, missed several and also many looked but turned away in the v. clear water. In the streamy runs and heads of pools.

5 Trout

A beautiful warm day with masses of fly life but virtually no rising fish. The Irfon is the lowest I've fished it and with very little flow it was hard going. I fished subsurface at all depths and took the first grayling in shallow water at the tail of Glaslyn pool, the fish had a severe slash to its flank which must have been fairly recent..around 15" to a tungsten bead hares ear size 16. Changing to dries the next was a smaller fish 12" to a size 16 para Adams followed by the 3 trout the biggest being 10", all on Adams patterns. With the water so low it was good to see what the river bed is actually like and the variety and depths of the gutters were noted for another occasion.

3 Trout, 2 Grayling

I entered a catch return the same day - don't know why it hasn't registered. One good pull in the Vanstone - where a few salmon were showing and a Chub from the bottom of Maddox on a Willie Gun.

1 Chub

What a beautiful day.........for sun worshippers!!! After a stroll along the first part of the beat, and seeing the level so low (only 3" on the guage),it was decided the salmon rods would stay in their tubes, and the weapon for the day would be the trout rods. The only 3 fish for the day came in the first hour, one being a grayling of about 1 1/2lb, then the sun got up, and an upstream wind picked up, and we couldn't buy another take. The successful fly was a gold shrimp #12. Still a cracking beat though!

2 Trout, 1 Grayling