Feedback & Reports

Bright day, clear water. Very few fish rising.

Overall, quite a difficult day - worked hard for the fish I had - all taken on the dry. Managed to winkle out a nice 3/4 pounder from just 8" of water, which was the fish of the day. Lovely stretch of river.

4 Trout

I caught 9 brown trout using a dry fly & dropper method and all the fish were taken on the nymphs. The nymphs were a mix of bead head pheasant tail #16, Hare's Ear bead head jig #16 and a Glister nymph #18 (New Zealand pattern).
I do want to take exception to the beat description in the passport pamphlet as being 'reasonably open and easy to fish' as it was anything but - more like fishing in the Amazon jungle. The foliage coverage was so extensive I actually made only 1 normal fly cast in the 5+ hours of fishing. Otherwise it was all roll casts, short flicks, bow & arrow casts or lots of downstream drifts as I could not cast from the pool's tail. The flood gate implementations made for some fun climbing and manoeuvring too. And the one pool that I caught my best fish on (a 12" brown) was more like the town tip - the pool had in no particular order a Wellington boot, a couple of tyres, a few scattered hub caps & a whole menagerie of other detritus. I guess the farmer who resides just above this pool sees it as an easy dumping ground. And in the earlier sections of the river the banks are extremely hard climb out from (steep, covered in metre high nettles & briars & barbed fencing) which is necessitated due to some very deep pools that are not wadeable. And in the upper sections I had flocks of sheep continually entering the pools as I worked my way up -- causing obvious disturbance & discolouring of the water.
WUF Note: Thank you for the feedback. We will amend the beat details and pass on the information to the Wild Stream volunteers.

9 Trout

1 x bream, couple small carp under 10lb. Very shallow water. Would I fish it again? Not sure.

3 Other

36 or more to hand 4 of which grayling. Fished from 10a.m - 3.30 p.m klink and dink for first two hours with size 18 natural cdc black bodied f-fly with size 18 tungsten beadhead below. This took about 12 trout and four grayling. By noon they were locked on mayfly with dunns being sipped down in slower water and emergers in the faster heads of pools and in the foam lanes. foam bodied size 12 mayfly brought 20+to hand. A good day on a good beat.

36 Trout

Fished the afternoon with other rods already using the beat, still the water looked OK. The top had only been fished with the fly so I went down the Spring pool with the spinner to try something different, did not touch anything. Couple of shad and trout from further down the beat was all I could manage.

2 Trout, 2 Other

Strong chill wind, and consequently sparse show of fly. In the pool tails, we had some response from a dry Adams, otherwise fish were taken by Czech nymph method. Best fish was 1.25lbs, others were between one pound and a half pound. All fish released. A larger fish was lost.

7 Trout

4 Brown trout 5" or less, 3 brown trout 6-7", 1 brown trout 10".

8 Trout

A lovely beat, very quiet place to lose yourself for the day. The river was slightly coloured and really fancied my chances early on but fishing was difficult. Took two small fish from the large pool at the bottom of the beat nymphing. Moved further up and started to target the far banks under the overhanging trees with a dry even though little was rising, which produces two fish to about a pound.
As this is a split beat, after a few beers for lunch at the Bell, moved to the upper beat, which at first looked a bit bland and not very fishy. Turned out to be very wrong as the stretch between the bridge and the Lodges proved to hold a lot of fish, took another 8 but lost twice that amount, 3 of them being good fish. Fish hard fighting, in beautiful condition and all seemed to run straight towards me and shed the hook. I always use barbless hooks but have never lost so many fish.
Good hatches of Sedges, Yellow Mayfly and other uprights and also some 'Proper' Mayflies which you don't see too often on the Usk.

12 Trout

Lovely overcast, mild day. Saw a kingfisher scudding upstream when I arrived which is always a good start. 10 bt to 3/4lb. Caught on emergers and grey wulf. There was a decent hatch of mayfly and good dry fly life.

10 Trout