Feedback & Reports

James and I fished one of our favourite beats for the first time this year. We had the pleasure of the company of kingfishers, salmon and sea lampreys although the flock of 10 goosanders when we arrived didn’t inspire confidence.
However all was in order. There were sporadic hatches all through the day – olives and yellow mays prominent but not necessarily the most numerous – other less conspicuous winged insects were far more numerous. The fish weren’t really impressed by the insects however and never really settled to regular rising patterns – a lot of oncers or experienced fish that were happy to keep rising to something miniscule whilst continually ignoring our offerings.
We habitually fish dry fly – that’s it! In the first two hours we had 8 fish between us – of my 4 I did not see any of them rise before I hooked them, and had I not been looking directly at my fly at the key moment neither would I have seen the take. All were extremely gentle – but well hooked. They were caught by fishing the likely spots fine and far off. The best of these 4 was a lovely fish of 15” which looked more like an Usk fish with the number of spots. The others were smaller.
James managed 10 trout and 2 grayling – two more 15” trout amongst them and a 16”er in the grayling. His 15”ers thought they were safe staying on the far side of the fast water but they haven’t encountered James’s suicidal wading before – chest waders over topped! Still it was a lovely warm day and the fish were worth it.
Despite current low flows the Wye lacks the algal slime that the Usk seems to be suffering from and there were at least 3 salmon in the beat. We fished to 9pm on a cracking day! All safely returned - Thank you as always.

14 Trout, 2 Grayling

Had a very frustrating and difficult day on this beautiful stretch of the Arrow. The day was bright with no wind and the water was clear, I had thought that with all the thunder storms around the Midlands and Wales that it might have been slightly coloured but definitely not!
I knew it was going to be tough when every time I saw a fish rising by the time I got to a point where I could cast the fish was long gone.
While I'm still a novice at fly fishing I do have a lot of experience stalking fish when coarse fishing, and how anyone got in range of these fish with tenkara outfit amazes me! I even tried sitting still for a while and waiting for the trout to re-appear, which they did, only to have them disappear the moment my fly hit the water!
To make matters worse I actually managed to hook 10 fish, including one large brownie tempted from under a tree, sadly the majority got off the hook.
I began to suspect there was something wrong with my flies, but they seemed ok, and they definitely didn't have any problem hooking and staying hooked to every leaf, twig and rock on the entire stretch.
On a bright side the whole river was alive with wildlife, Mayflies, dragon flies and damsel flies were all on the wing, and twice a pair of king fishers shot past me in blue blurs.
Overall this beat is superb, plenty of fish and plenty of likely looking areas to cast to, shame there are so many of those fly eating beech trees though!
Thanks WUF for another great day

2 Trout

Rod 1 - 3 trout on fly
Rod 2 - 4 trout on fly
Rod 3 - 2 trout on fly

9 Trout

The water was low and clear, and a stiff breeze (which changed direction throughout the day) made casting a challenge. We saw flies coming off throughout the day, but nothing was rising to take them so we persevered with nymphs and spider patterns, managing to take fish throughout the length of the beat, and primarily from the faster runs. Small bead-heads and spider patterns proved most successful (PTNs, Snipe and Purple, GRHE, and Greenwells all tempted fish). We had a great day out, and will certainly return to this stretch.

13 Trout, 5 Grayling

My dear wife woke me at 4.30am and got me to the riverbank in time to cast a fly by 5am! Unfortunately we were greeted by a murky, heavily algae stained and very warm river Wye. However, we still enjoyed a beautiful morning with lots of Salmon cartwheeling about and one even generously snatched at my fly but nothing took hold properly. The opposite rods on Cadora were spinning away by 8am and we stopped to enjoy the scenery and a cooked breakfast on the bank but no champagne. We carried on till 10am fishing hard with fly and spinners and finally the opposition caught one on a flying C. We went off to enjoy the glorious sunshine elsewhere and returned at 6pm to fish the Alders pool and wonderful Cadora run once again. The opposition were now filming and still honorably casting away with the flying C's! Despite our best efforts the Salmon were not interested other than trying to jump out of the hot soupy muck and we left at 9.30pm by which time the Cadora pool was filled right across to the stream on the opposite side with a scummy foam! An interesting and short beat which requires some application to work the fly other than Cadora run and some major holding spots more easily fished with spinner. Loads of fish showing and wonderful scenery but not a good day for catching fish in that water, although the opposite side did manage one - such is Salmon fishing!

Water was low, warm and sunny day. saw one salmon at the bottom of beat 2, could not walk from beat 2 to beats 3 & 4 due to barbed wire, signs were non existant.
WUF Note : The barbed wire fencing has stiles erected at all the relevant places. Beat maps are issued and advice offered to anyone visiting.

Two lovely trout in idyllic surroundings with great company. Mikes first trout for 30 plus years.
largest was 3/4 lb on GRHE from Wally's cast. Nice raffle prize.

2 Trout

Pleasant beat with easy access to the water which had a reasonable flow. One salmon showed in the nearby pool but not a great day for fishing as temperatures reached 26.5 in the afternoon. Caught 4 Shad which fought well- all returned.

4 Other

Arrived late morning to find little sign of hungry fish but managed to catch two trout around 8" in length in the first half hour. Thereafter no success for an hour so I decided to go to Upper Grwyne Fawr which is a short drive from Lower Stanton.

2 Trout

This a challenging beat in the sense that the water is fast moving and in parts it is a bit tricky underfoot. However, it is a very nice stretch of water that I have fished a bit in previous seasons. I spent about 4 hours picking my way upstream through the small fast running pools getting plenty of interest in my Grey Wulff fly but failing to hook much. Pretty much every pool produced a strike but for some reason I did not manage to actually make contact. This said I did manage to catch 3 small trout of the order of 5-6" and one a little larger. Thus at the end of a long afternoon and feeling tired and a bit frustrated I reached a rather deep pool nearer the top of the beat. On first cast I made contact and wow, what a splash! After a substantial fight I landed a trout that must have been 16" in length and very fat; a great end to the day and the best fish I have caught this season. Interestingly, all of the fish caught were dark in colour with relatively small spots; not sure why but maybe something to do with the lack of light on this beat?

5 Trout