Feedback & Reports

10lb salmon caught on size 9 Cascade Double. Very Fresh fish, fought well and safely returned. River +15" (Trostrey Gauge) and coloured.

1 Salmon

4 Trout

2 Trout

2ft 2ins on Llanstephan gauge and fairly coloured. One fairly fresh cock salmon, 30 inches, on single hook FC. Another about the same size lost earlier after 10 minutes play. Quite a few fish seen moving through.
Plus a late report from 15 May. Two salmon, 9 and 12 pounds, taken by Brian Skinner spinning on the same beat.

1 Salmon

River full and fast flowing following recent rain, but lovely and clear. Sun and cloud and a few gusts of wind. Wading quite tricky in places and I nearly fell in a couple of times. Clouds of midges. Some mayfly and gnats.
A few trout rising in the pools and ripples. Caught 3 small 6-8in trout one on a pheasant tail dry. Switched to an Adams and that brought the fish up and then caught the biggest wild brown I've ever caught on a river. A fabulous fish of about 2.5 pounds. Most unexpected on this small river.
All the fish were returned unharmed. Another fantastic WUF beat!!And a gorgeous setting.

4 Trout

Success! After what seems hundreds of man hours, I'm happy to say I'm off the mark. First Salmon on the fly. I thought it was about 12lb, but at 34 inches maybe slightly heavier. No lice and very slightly coloured, dropped the fly in the net and swam away strongly.
Just under 2 ft on the Gauge and coloured, taken in the Cottage Pool on a Large Double Cascade tied by the one and only Jean Williams of Sweet's Tackle Shop in Usk. Bless you Jean!
Still an awful lot to learn, but nice to get some reward for my efforts, hopefully the first of many.

1 Salmon

Rather high water and some colour. Few rises.

1 Trout

Fished for a couple of hours after work. Best point to access is the start of the beat at the bridge into the industrial estate, by the Fishtec tackle shop. Once in the river you can progress upstream. Note - when in the river banks are very high and fenced off, so you will have to wade back downstream to get out. Bear this in mind if the light is fading as the river bed is extremely rocky and has some surprisingly deep holes. I caught 4 trout 8 -10 inch and 2 x salmon parr. Fairly Low density of fish, each bigger pool holds maybe 1 -2 trout. One seen to 3/4 lb. Quite spooky and water is gin clear with a strong flow. Dry parachute adams brought fish up, nothing on deeply fished nymphs.

4 Trout, 2 Other

Found the river still coloured but pressed on with the fly, One lost in the bridge pool on 1" tube and another pull in the same area. River dropping in the morning only to rise again through the afternoon. One nice brown taken due to being badly hooked. A lot of fish seen running through all day , some big!! Looking forward to next visit in clear conditions.

1 Trout

Nil return. This fishery is situated in quite a deep valley with steep sided banks so unless the water is low enough to wade you're restricted to roll or speycasting. I tried to cross to the upstream end of the island but hit a deep channel and got swept of my feet and then trapped against a tree bough by the force of water in the channel. I had real difficulty getting back to the bank - a close call that put paid to fishing. The gauge at Trostrey was 1ft 3" and the one at Glanusk 6" when I had my accident so take great care when wading this beat at this water height. At lower water it would probably be quite an interesting place to fish, there was quite a lot of small olives, yellow Mays and the odd mayfly around the fast water by the island. Some very large trout were rising in the deep pool at the downstream end of the beat but getting near them is very difficult because of the very steeply angled banks. To avoid drowning I had to let go of my beige bag with blue trim containing several boxes of flies and an attached tenkara hayase rod in its tube. The boxes are marked with my name Ian Calvert and mobile no - I would be willing to give a reward of £100 for the return of these if anyone finds them.