Feedback & Reports

Thirteen pound salmon caught on no 3 beat
on fly, size 12 Willie Gunn double, fresh fish

1 Salmon, 1 Chub

The Wye is a very wide river at this place. It wouldn’t look out of place in a David Attenborough documentary on Canada. All that was missing was the grizzly bears. And the salmon. (The latter not showing themselves today, due to the low flow I suppose.) The water was running very clear and it really is a lovely looking bit of river to spend a sunny spring afternoon.

In contrast to yesterday’s experience on the Rive Usk, very few mayflies were in evidence, put off hatching by the bright sunshine no doubt. No fish were seen to be rising either. Never before have I fished such a large river. A long beat too, at roughly 1 ½ miles. To be honest, without any rising fish, I was unsure where to start. Hiring a local guide for the day wouldn’t have been a bad idea. The beat map and information on the pools from Wye &Usk Foundation / Fishing Passport were detailed enough, albeit more suited to salmon fishermen I’d say.

I set off downstream towards the Llanstephan suspension bridge, listing to the sounds of the Wye in spring: The rush of the falls, the splashing of mallards, a blackbird singing for a mate, motorbikes using the A470 as a racetrack…

I looked into the gloom of the deep Heirag pool. No fish were visible, so I plumbed its depths with some weighted flies – a cone-headed woolly bugger and a tungsten-beaded shrimp – hoping for a big trout. If any fish were present, they showed no interest in my offerings.

I tied out a gold beaded Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear. Ten minutes of casting got no response, but the water here just ‘looked right’ for trout. I persisted. I was just about to lift off into another cast when a fish took the fly. It put a good bend in the 6wt rod, before throwing the hook. I estimate it would have been around the one-pound mark. Next cast, another tug without a hookup. Then nothing. A cold wind started to blow upstream.

Back to the river. Moving upstream again, I waded out some distance onto a section of gravel. With no luck here, I returned back to the place where I had some interest earlier. I stuck with the gold beaded GRHE, and cast it out into the run.

With the most delicate of takes, a brown trout took the nymph. It was well hooked and I was able to bring him to the net. A plump little fish of about ten inches. With its large bright red spots, I have to say it was a better looking fish than its Usk cousins caught yesterday. It swam away strongly.

Having found a productive spot, I’m sure I could have brought more trout to net. Unfortunately, I had to be elsewhere later that day, so I followed my principle of finishing on a good fish, and called it a day mid-afternoon.

(full report and more photos on my blog: afishingdiary.com)

1 Trout

Fished for 2 hours in the morning. Beautiful beat, although very deep in places and wading is not always possible due to depth. Had 4 takes and 1 wbt on an iron blue dun pattern, around 1lb in weight.

1 Trout

5 Trout

No fish taken - catch and release Dry flies and Klinkhammer with nymph used River 6" lower than the previous day

2 Trout, 2 Grayling

Enjoyable days fishing and exploring a new beat to me. River predictably low at around 10" but still enough flow to work the fly in pools at top and bottom of beat. 4 brownies to 4lb on salmon flies and a 15lb pike from Llangoed pool on FC. A nice stretch of river and not as heavily booked as Rectory and will return when another foot on the gauge. Ah and not a canoe to be seen all day, the prime reason for booking above Glasbury!

4 Trout, 1 Pike

The weather was not too bad and as B had a fish on the fly of 12lb on Friday 19th we were in good spirits. As I am a relative beginner with the salmon rod you will probably have a laugh now. B S was with me to help and guide me down through the pool under the bridge with three long boards, we fished the top of the run and down on to the first board, half way down that board B said "ok pal you're fine now, no problems" and went to tack up himself with the spinning rod.
I reached the end of the board and a fish took! Now the fun part, I was told do not strike like a trout just let the fish take it and raise your rod, I did this with B shouting "Give it some wellie! Hit it!" by this time my rod was at twelve o'clock and I had no where to go, as you can guess off it came.
With a rollicking in my ear I started again, finished the second board on to the third when wham my rod went over, well I hit this one but it felt totally different to the first fish. I landed it and it was a shad. I do know what it feels like to have a salmon on the fly having played a fish B hooked and playing fish on the spinning rod.
So one salmon lost, one shad caught and confirmation of B catching one on Friday for all the doubters out there.

1 Other

2 Trout

Quiet day with just a couple of small carp caught from the area near the car park

2 Other

Sunny, cloudy, windy, river very low and clear. Although good numbers of fish rising, many were taking short, resulting in short hook ups or misses. However, we did manage to catch seven trout, with the two best fish at 2lbs. and 2.5lbs. All caught on small dries of varying types.

7 Trout