Feedback & Reports

Lovely day fishing and good fly water, lost a salmon and rose another in gabions on fly.

The day started bright and sunny but the predicted heavy showers arrived in the afternoon. The river was low and clear with a blustery wind. There was very little fly life in the morning but olives did start to appear after midday in between the showers with a few splashing rises. I managed to take 6 grayling on hares ear and pheasant tail nymphs fished under a balloon caddis in the riffles and 2 trout to 11" taken on olive Klinkhammer during the afternoon from the feeding lanes in the longer glides.
A great day out on the lovely beat.

2 Trout, 6 Grayling

Not a bad day for early in the season weather overcast and chilly, about 2/3 of the fish taken on nymphs the others on the dry fly mainly grey dun patterns. Will be back again later this year hopefully I will get to fish other areas of this wonderful beat.

4 Trout, 4 Grayling

3 Trout

4 Trout

Weather cold – hard frost last night – and cold breeze. Mild spells interspersed with cold squalls throughout the day. River low and clear. Best fishing was in the squalls however as a few March Browns and LDOs braved the conditions to emerge – and a rise followed.
Fish on this beat seem largely to resist the charms of our size 14 and 16 parachute flies – so went bigger with size 12 Imperial parachutes. Best fish nailed one – a lovely 16 incher. Two smaller fish came to ginger quills and two others were lost
So a fairly typical Usk early season day – challenging but at least one respectable fish

3 Trout

Two hen fish, one 8lb the other 12lb both on flying c

2 Salmon

First visit here, river very low, overcast, occasional light rain and a freezing northerly wind, downstream of course!
Walked the entire length of the beat stopping occasionaly to run gold headed nymphs through likely looking spots but didn't catch. I did see a huge trout while standing up on the bank looking down into the water though which was a fantastic sight.
A few olives started to appear, only in ones and twos but I did find a couple of fish rising but trying to cast into the stiff breeze wasn't fun and the the cows turned up for a drink so I moved upstream. I soon found more rising fish and the hatch was now in full swing but casting upstream to them wasn't possible so I carefully made my way up to them and sat on a rock under tree and watched a number of fish taking flies regularly only feet away from me. I managed two on a Greenwells Glory dry tired by myself and missed a couple more, things went quiet than, the drizzle started and it was getting very cold so decided to call it a day.
Cracking beat, lots of very fishy looking water, will be back in May.

1 Trout

Weather could – hard frost last night – and cold breeze. Mild spells interspersed with cold squalls throughout the day. River low and clear. Best fishing was in the squalls however as a few March Browns and LDOs braved the conditions to emerge – and a rise followed.
Fish on this beat seem largely to resist the charms of our size 14 and 16 parachute flies – so went bigger with size 12 Imperial parachutes. Best fish nailed one – a lovely 16 incher. Two smaller fish came to ginger quills and two others were lost
So a fairly typical Usk early season day – challenging but at least one respectable fish

3 Trout