Feedback & Reports

My best Wye salmon to date taken on the smallest fly in my box as advised by Terry.

1 Salmon

A lovely walk in the Usk valley on a crisp autumnal day. B caught and returned a 2lb+ brown Trout first cast, downhill from there on until we reached the old farm where we caught 3 more Trout and I made brief contact with a bright looking 5-6lb fish, whether it was a Salmon or Sewin I was not sure. An enjoyable day with Dippers, Kingfishers and a single Red Breasted Merganser for company.

4 Trout

Blank day. Not much sign of fish today. I did manage to make it to the top of the beat because the undergrowth is dying back. I have to report that a pair of very large trees have fallen across the river at the very top of the beat blocking the flow and probably preventing the passage of fish. They are certainly preventing the passage of fishermen! Enjoyable day in peaceful surroundings. Thank you WUF.

After fishing the top field the previous day I thought I'd actually walk the whole stretch before starting to fish on the final day. I hiked over the hill but I could only find one swim that looked like it had some depth and so I decided to fish the same swims as the day before. I had a small Barbel from the hole down from the dead tree followed by a decent trout. Moving up to the top swim I had three more Barbel in quick succession and then the Dace moved in, finally for the last couple of hours I moved back down to the previous swim and managed to net a decent Chub.
All in all I had a lovely couple of days on what was a new stretch of the Wye for me. As I mentioned it's always worth giving Woody a call for river info before coming up and if like me in London all your local tackle shops seem to be geared solely for carp anglers, his shop is a veritable Aladin's cave of river tackle.
Can't wait til my next trip up!

4 Barbel

Saw a few salmon, but didn't make contact. A very enjoyable day.

2 Grayling

Caught 1 small grayling on klinkhammer. Tried other methods but to no avail. I've found that a furled leader spooks the fish less than than a tapered nylon leader when fishing the top for grayling.

1 Grayling

difficult windy day flyfishing with dry and nymph fly (not the best)
excellent recept at doldowlod caravan park

3 Trout, 7 Grayling

Great day as per normal. Roger had the best barbel of 9lbs. All the others were slightly smaller. You need to hunt down these fish as they tend to move around with the low water conditions.

7 Barbel

12 x grayling 12-16 inches, 2 x out of season trout 12 and 15 inches, Pink Shrimp and Tungsten Hare's Ear. The dry spell continues, so Arrow is still very low and clear. I worked on some of the deeper runs and dubs with a short rod and two heavy nymphs - only one fish seen rising to some pale watery duns hatching during the afternoon so it didn't seem worth changing method. This was in fact a really nice bag of grayling: just two smaller fish and all the rest were like peas in a pod, 15 and 16 inches, which is most encouraging. Three or so years ago, more than half of the catch would have been stocked trout put in during the summer. Now the stocking has ceased and I am convinced the wild fish will have benefited (both the by-catch trout on this occasion were wild Arrow fish). Otherwise, Herefordshire looked as good as it always does in autumn colours (I admit this, even though I am a Gloucestershire man) and apples everywhere waiting to be picked.

2 Trout, 12 Grayling

Got to the river at about 10am. The river was quite low (0.5m on the gauge) and gin clear. I started at the top and worked my way down the beat on the caravan park side. Not a peep, apart from, bizarrely, a silver scale on the hook from wood stream. Lunch in the pub and then investigated below the bridge. Again, very quiet, although I saw the first salmon jumps by the wires at about 2.30 pm. And then, at about 5pm everything changed. Back up at the Rock pool, salmon started jumping. I turned a good fish in the throat of Rock pool, switched to a red FC and then about 20 yards below the fallen tree a coloured 15lb cock fish took. While playing it, it scared an identical fish that I had evidently just waded past, which shot into the air not 6 feet from me and gave me the shock of my life. Safely landed it swam away happily. As the fish were still showing so I went down the pool again. Same spot, not 10 minutes after the first, another fish was on. Another kyped, coloured cock fish, this time of about 8lbs. I've never caught more than one salmon in a day and most often catch nothing so a red letter day for me! Thanks too to Barry for his considered advice on the phone too. To the 2016 season!

2 Salmon