Feedback & Reports

Fished both the lower and middle beats in a day. The lower beat was overgrown all the way up, so fished a short line (sort of) Czech style to explore the nooks and crannies. Caught one small brownie, but tough going as low and clear.
The middle beat has a few more open spots, and took two fish, around 9" from the large pool in the middle of the beat and the one immediately below it. Where you can cast properly I caught. Lovely beat, although narrows considerably towards the top of the beat.
Flies were a tungsten head nymph with pink hotspot on the point and copper John on the dropper. 2 of the three took the point fly.

2 Trout

Fished the lower and middle beats together. Beat is fairly overgrown, so casting difficult, so reverted to short line / Czech style. Even with a short rod (7"6) still tricky. In summer likely to be impossible for large parts of the beat.
Took one small brownie to a tungsten head nymph on the point. Beat low and clear, didn't spot many fish.

1 Trout

River in good condition but still quite cold and pushing through strongly. Not helped by the gusty downstream wind, which kept all but a few hardy small sedges from hatching. Struggled to make any sort of contact on nymphs, but managed to save the day by taking a couple of 8-9" grayling from the pool just below the Clettwr Brook - amazingly on a dry!

2 Grayling

Lovely beat to look at but wind and rain stopped play.

1 Trout

We gave it a couple of hours before the 40 mph winds persuaded us to repair to a local hostelry. On the rare occasions our upstream nymphs landed in the right place they significantly failed to induce any detectable fishy action. Lovely bit of water on a balmy summer evening I suspect!

Heavy rain and river was quite full. Only fished for an hour. No fish but did see a few rises.

Not a day for fair weather fishermen, but the angler's obsession drove us to persevere through gale force winds and blanket rain. And what a return! Eight lovely fish between 12 and 18", mainly to a Copper John. An excellent beat, to which we will return !

8 Trout

Firstly, what a beautiful stretch of river... a fabulous place to go and fish. It is a shame there was still no sign of any fish....no trout rising despite some olives showing. I walked 'the planks' at Llanstephan and saw nothing at all. I will try again however in a few weeks.
One thing to say.... the drive down to the beat is too hazardous for most vehicles to venture down. There is a big drop on corner at the top which will ground anything but a 4x4. Also it is open for anyone to go down to the river. This is fine if the 'anyone' isn't a poacher but I couldn't help wondering if an apparent lack of fish in the deep pool just off to the left of the entrance was to do with ease of access for unscrupulous poachers.
WUF Note: This beat is well patrolled so the lack of fish seen is probably more to do with the cold early season conditions. The "Leaning Willow" opposite the hut is not thought of as the best pool for trout. The Ferry, Upper Heirag, Bridge Pool and Spring Pool are all regarded as better for trout and, when in season, grayling.

River was probably still a tad high for the fly (11" on the gauge at Fownhope on Thursday night). However, I had a lovely day, certainly the best of the Easter weekend weatherwise, and it was good to blow away the casting cobwebs.
I also took the services of Mick (the Ghillie), who I couldn't recommend highly enough, particularly if on your first visit to the fishery. Lovely guy and knows the beat inside out.