Feedback & Reports

A beautiful spring day on the Usk. My first visit this far upstream. After a quiet morning the Olives started to appear at lunchtime, with several fish rising to them. I couldn't persuade them to take my offerings. Mid afternoon I hooked into a nice 14" WBT using a pale spider, one that I had tied, which added to the pleasure. Fish safely released. I covered only a fraction of the beat and will be back soon to explore some more.

1 Trout

Good day on a new beat. 2 chub around 1lb caught accidentally on spinner followed by a cracking 5lb chub on the fly (all returned swiftly and none the worse for their out-of-season adventure). Large Salmon hooked and lost on a FC mid afternoon at The Point. Other salmon seen during the day.

3 Other

Good days fishing with some healthy, hard fighting fish.
Good hatch of olives and March browns from lunch time till about 4ish. Most of the fish taken on dries targeting rising fish.

12 Trout

All caught on small nymphs fished NZ style. Lovely day exploring this wild stream.

4 Trout

3 Trout returned. Enjoyable but struggled with access.

3 Trout

Fantastic day on the river, myself and my fishing buddy both taking our first brown trout ever!
Arrived after early morning rain to find the river quite low with a very slight tinge of colour, it looked perfect as we made our way to the far end of the beat. I caught almost straight away on a gold head nymph with Marc catching a little while later from a deep eddy close to the bank also on a gold head nymph. Marc then took two more from a fast run while I lost a good fish on a dry fly!
Lunch in the Bell was great, highly recommended, then back to the fishing, Marc had to leave so I fished on taking another off the surface on a dry fly and later losing a fish on a nymph when it jumped clear of the water and shed the hook.
All in all a fantastic day, will be back for more.

5 Trout

14 lbs on fly. Also broken by a good fish when a loose stud jammed the brake of quite an expensive fly reel. Will stick to a plain Nottingham in future!
In the low, clear water a pretty good run of smolts seen leaving the river over the past week.

1 Salmon

20 x trout 6-13 inches, 4 x out of season grayling 7-14 inches, North Country spiders, mostly Dark Moorgame and Snipe and Purple. Despite the odd shower, the river is still very low and with a nasty cold downstream wind today. Some small trout were stacked up in the fast runs at the heads of pools, but other parts of the river were very difficult to fish with almost no natural rises. A very few olives around and some iron blues early afternoon.

20 Trout

3.30-4.40, thrashing into a cold downstream wind. Two nice fish both around 12 inches and in typical Arrow form. One much larger -16 inch+ emaciated stocked fish. All on size 14 tungsten nymph from head of pools.

2 Trout, 1 Other

Overnight rain had refreshed river without adding too much volume or colour. Cool and cloudy with sunny intervals. Air temp 9-15C. Water temp 10C. Persistent cool d/str breeze. Fished from 11am - 3pm. A few March Brown around 11.30am and a thin scattering of large olives from noon until 3pm. Caught 9 trout, 7 of which on dry olive. 5 over a pound with heaviest 1lb 4oz.

9 Trout