Feedback & Reports

Another lovely day on a clear running river. 1 Trout on a para adams (and 1 missed) during a short rise in one pool, the rest on GRHE or PTN nymphs. 4 Trout at 9" to 12", plus two 12" grayling in good condition. Only a sparse hatch but the fish were caught over the whole beat.

4 Trout, 2 Grayling

A lovely spring day - more lamb than lion today after a cold night in the campervan! Short bursts (10-12 minutes each) of furious fly activity, with March Browns in such intensity I have never seen before. Goodness, what a come-back this fly species is making on the Usk. Five good trout to 16 inches caught and returned. First visit to this beat. Very enjoyable.

5 Trout

The weather was wonderful for March and the river was running very clear with plenty of height. No salmon showing anywhere but we pressed on anyway. There was a significant hatch of March Browns at lunch time. Only saw 2 fish rise and we failed to connect with any. A lovely beat though and some really helpful advice from the owner and Lynn - many thanks to both. We will return later in the season.

1 Trout

Very cold; water clear; no rising fish. None kept.

1 Trout

A curate's egg of a day with glorious spring sunshine interspersed with bitter winter - lamb and lion in a single March day. Short bursts of fly activity with LDOs and a smattering of March Browns, through the middle of the day. Nine brown trout to 17 inches landed and all returned.

9 Trout

This is the fourth or fifth time I have fished this beat and it remains my favourite because I caught my biggest Usk trout there a few years ago. I have blanked or had two or three fish at best but this time everything went to plan. After a slow start, a good number of fish started rising in the run just below where you park your car. There was a hatch which lasted two and a half hours of a ? small upright olive type thing, I think march browns are bigger and large dark olives are huge so I am not sure. This beat has a good population of trout, have all the predators been shot, is there stocking involved or did my brother and I just have a lucky day? Love to hear from someone on this. Great day and hope I have not got anyones hopes up to much as it might be a one or two fish day next time!! Beaded pheasant tail nymph and cdc shuttlecock dry did the damage - all returned.

10 Trout

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