Feedback & Reports

River 0.48m on the Bredwardine guage and dropping, and a nice tea colour after the rain earlier in the week. Great to be out again having not fished a river for the last week and so grabbed a few hours in the morning on the local beat before the wind really got up later in the afternoon. Fish rising on arrival at 9 a.m. and the odd one still doing so when I had to leave at 1 p.m. In spite of olives, YMs, the odd OU, sedges, midge, gnat and a few Danica providing a diverse potential bill of fare, fish appeared primarily to be taking the olives, as all fish were taken on a size 16 Universal Baetis Ducks Dun( see Gwent AS website if interested in tying details). OU, YM and mayfly patterns passed unmolested! Judging by WUF's catch returns, and reports from GAS on the Usk, the rivers at last seem to have woken up, now that the cold easterlies that plagued us for much of the last month seem to have gone. Fish ranged from 10, 12, 14 to 16" with two of the latter +/- 1.75lb.

14 Trout

A quick evening session hoping to see some Mayfly. Fished 19.00 to 21.00 and no Mayfly seen.
Plenty of BWO spinners and a few Sedge. Some rising fish but most caught prospecting the tails of the runs. 6 Trout to a small IOBO.

6 Trout

An embarrassing blank on what should have been an excellent day.
Arrived in sunshine with a light breeze down stream, plenty of swallows swooping over the bay and a good hatch. I made my way down the beat and on arrival, found fish taking off the surface. As I set up the breeze got stronger, and as always this year it was downstream. The water was fast so I fished a size 14 klinkhammer, and on the second cast had a fish on then off again. For the next hour I had numerous fish rise and lost eight, some of which were a very good size. I can't say why I was losing them, possibly because of that wind hampering my presentation. There was then a very heavy shower, which had hail stones, so I switched to nymph, but no takers. Every time the wind dropped the fish came back on the surface, and I switched so many times from dry to wet. Right at the end of the day I lost another fish this time hooked on a nymph, after many expletives I went home. Really nice beat, fish a good average size, will return for definite.

15lbs on FC from Alders Pool. Fresh but no lice. Quiet since fresh water.

1 Salmon

Seven brown trout to 13 inches. Abundant fly life, large dark olive duns and spinners, mayfly beginning to hatch, gnats, medium olives, but little setting on the water and therefore few fish rising. All but the smallest, which was willing to rise, took a small copper headed pheasant tail nymph fished NZ style. I had to leave mid afternoon but am sure there would have been a fantastic rise in the early evening. Such beautiful stretch of river, also I had forgotten how the Hereford trout are so gorgeously marked.

BTW forgot from my last return at Canals and Rivers Trust that I found a lower section from a multi piece travel fly rod, it is natural carbon with one lined ring with black whippings traced with gold at each end. If anyone using WUF has lost this please put them in touch by e-mail

7 Trout

2 Trout

Perfect May conditions. A good mayfly hatch although they were only taken sporadically by the trout. In fact I was very impressed with the insect life. Water levels up after recent rain made the fishing so much better than I anticipated. All fish caught on the dry fly - mostly klinkhammers and CDCs. Wading is difficult and I recommend a wading staff as it's all bedrock. One excellent 1.5lb trout taken in the evening, otherwise most of the fish were between 3/4lb and 1lb. All fish returned.

8 Trout

A good day, warm with broken cloud. Water a little muddy but a few decent rising fish. Klink & Dink worked okay.

3 Trout, 2 Grayling

No salmon, water quite coloured and annoying amounts of silk weed. Lovely stretch and Nathan could not have been more helpful.

Arrived on the river mid morning and the weather was cloudy/humid. Fish rising freely and on the second cast hooked into a decent brownie of 13''. It seemed like we were onto a potential 'red letter day' but as the weather changed for the worse the rising fish turned off, despite there being a lot of naturals (Caddis and Mayfly) on and off the water. Resorted to Klink & Dink tactics but that was not very productive. Ended the beat fishing with a large, bushy Mayfly that was highly visible (for us and the target fish) and that seemed to do the job (Should've tied that on earlier in the session). A fantastic day out, in beautiful surroundings - Would do it all again tomorrow and we'd also be a bit sharper, as we drew many fish to the fly but dropped them in the excitement and retrieve. All fish returned.

6 Trout, 1 Grayling