Feedback & Reports

After fishing this beat last week and catching fourteen trout to 14" I wanted to try again for some of the larger fish I had spotted. The sun was bright and the river lower making things tricky but by getting into position near the head of the pools and keeping still I was able to let the fish start feeding as a few March Browns and LDO's started coming off around late morning.Using a para Adams and a black tung bead PTN as a duo I caught some good fish with the best a very plump 17" and lost a couple of solid fish. Later on I fished the far bank fast runs with long leader nymphs (a new dual length rod is a great tool) and had good sport with fish to 15". With such beautiful weather I had to finish the day by stripping off and having a swim in the middle pool, life doesn't get much better!

8 Trout

A lovely day on Gromain, which started off quite slowly with a few fish taken on deep fished nymphs. Once the sun warmed things up, the fishing just got better and better. At 1 O'clock there was a good hatch of light grey uprights which lasted for a good hour. A few LDO's also. During this period the fish were rising freely and took 10 fish in the same pool. Mainly 8-10 inch Grayling but a few trout up to a pound and a half. All taken on a Parachute Adams or similar flies.
It's nice to see the river start to wake up after the long winter and take fish on the dry, as I feel I have been dragging the bottom of as long as I can remember!

12 Trout, 10 Grayling

I went down to the home waters for a couple of hours after midday today to see if there was yet any sign of fly life. Was not too optimistic given the intermittent downstream wind and rain forecast for early afternoon. As over the last week or so, I saw no olives - they are clearly much later here on the middle river than further up and on the Usk. Happily though, the first of the March Browns eventually arrived instead. So, having had no joy initially with olive nymphs, I decided to change to a March Brown Duck's Dun variant and had a trout and four OOS grayling, the best of which was a nice 16" fish of just under 1.5lb. Most were non rising fish but clearly looking up and seeing something of interest. Water still cold at 6 degrees. It's a start but probably still needs to warm up a bit!

1 Trout, 4 Grayling

Cold and wet.

8 Trout

Better day as river .72m and able to get to fish. Took all fish on march brown spider on the point, all in lower woodstream. Fished from 11 -2 and hooked 6 but landed 3 fish of three quarter pound each. Lost one of around 2lb, silly me. All fish returned.
Fished for Salmon at rock down to chine with intermediate line and usk grub with no takes. John blanked.
Heavy rain by 4 so returned home.

3 Trout

Cold and wet.

8 Trout

Caradoc off the mark with the first fish of the season, a 19lb hen fish caught by David Harrington spinning with a blue + silver minnow.

1 Salmon

1 x 28lb salmon, caught on fly. Truth is that it is luck whether you hook a ten pounder or a twenty pounder. The point though is that on the Wye the odds in early spring are in favour of latching into a bigger fish. I doubt there is any river in the UK apart from maybe the Severn with such a high average weight for spring fish. It ain't always easy fishing - but it's well worth it.
The last few years have seen small but significant steps forward in terms of the spring catch. It's about time the hard work of people in the Wye and Usk Foundation striving to improve the river got the recognition it deserves.
So as far as I'm concerned it's a big thank you to those who kept their faith in work to support and enable a natural recovery. The river is still a long way from where we want it to be, but things are going in the right direction.

1 Salmon

7lb cock fish, caught at 1100hrs spinning (black/silver flying C). Superb conditioned deep bodied little springer that swam away safely! Water clarity is v-good but no other fish seen by myself or my colleague!

1 Salmon

River clear. Bright sunny day. Warm. Bright silver fish 10lbs. Strong hard fight. Caught in Boat Pool spinning with yellow flying C single hook. Fish released unharmed.

1 Salmon