Feedback & Reports

Cilmery Gauge 0.85 dropping to 0.75m by evening and ice in the rod rings so tough going, but managed some small grayling on trotted maggots. River running clear. My first visit so spent much of the day looking around, truly a stunning piece of water.

1 Trout, 3 Grayling

Had 3 hours on the water, very cold ice in all the puddles, foggy until 2pm. The river was running off from previous rain with a good level of water coloured but not chocolate. Fished upstream gold heads, no fish caught but couple of nice pulls, I guess it's the penalty of fishing barbless hooks which I prefer to use. One disappointment was seeing a cormorant fly over.

Lovely part of the river, no fish caught dead baiting for pike.

Six in total, 4 grayling to trotted maggot and two oos brownies also. River OK for first hour and half then rose rapidly and coloured up with the amount of rain. All came from the same pool. All grayling ten inches, one brownie 8 inches the other 14 inches. Shame the rain destroyed what promised to be a good days fishing but will be back on this beat once levels drop enough to give it another bash.

2 Trout, 4 Grayling

A nice day for a stroll up and down the beat. No real opportunity to fish as the river was very high, fast and coloured.

The river had risen 3ft overnight. Tried different smelly baits in a couple of swims but no bites.

First fishing of 2015 took me to the Arrow for winter grayling. The water was coloured but I gave it a go with both upstream nymphing with pink shrimps and trotting with maggots.
Both techniques produced fish. Nothing of any size but there are plenty of fish in this section of the river based on the number of bites I missed!

4 Grayling

Nothing caught this time.

I had not fished this section before and was unsure of the effect the extra water in the river would have on the fishing. The river was running fast with a good colour. The EA river level reading at Butts Bridge was 1.22m. Although not having any previous experience of the river I would imagine that it would have been better to fish if there was a foot less water in the river.
My dad and I fished a bread feeder for the majority of the time although I did try cheese and maggot. We had 6 chub in total, 4 small chub of about 1lb for me and a small chub and a fish of 3lb 8oz for dad.
A nice stretch but with lots of snags that the fish were well aware of (I lost 2 in near bank snags).

6 Chub

The river was up a little when we got there but rose about 4 feet during the day. I caught 2 on my first 2 casts. Richard pike fished with no luck. The best chub was about 4 pounds.

5 Chub