Feedback & Reports

No fish caught by myself or J, river level relatively low, temperature around 12 degrees (river that is). Spinning with various lures including Devon Minnows, Tobies, Mepps but no takes from any fish. Enjoyed the fishing in beautiful surroundings despite not catching, Red Lion is lovely place to stay.

34 inch cock fish which took a black and yellow tube, on intermediate tip now, in Carey Stream. Took me all the way down to the bottom end, me stumbling after, jumped a few times and right down to the old railway bridge piers. Full marks for effort I thought. Hook dropped out once it was in the net. A lovely silver hog-backed fish. I had to go and have a pint at Hoarwithy to recover.

1 Salmon

Floating line, small dark flies. Disappointing size - rainbows less than 1lb each.

3 Trout

Nothing caught.

Hard days fishing, very sunny and quite windy but a beautiful stretch of water. Only a few fish taken on dry and nymph but a wonderful relaxing day by the river.

9 Trout

Again a beautiful day. Directions on the map are extremely helpful. A lovely promising stretch but no luck. It seemed perhaps a little hot.

I enjoyed fishing and caught one trout. Weather was nice.

1 Trout

We started off at the bottom end of the beat, fishing the few deep gutter-type pools found close to the road. As there were no fish rising I started off by trundling a size 16 GRHE gold-head nymph through the gutters. Second drift through I had a seriously heavy bump and upon inspection found a few decent sized scales impaled on the hook point. Knowing there was something big(ish) in the deep water below my feet I had a third attempt and this time connected with what I can only assume was the same fish that was now missing a few scales and understandably irritated.
After a nail biting ten minutes of surging runs upstream and downstream, cartwheeling, thrashing, head shaking (I was only using a 6# rod and a 3lb tippet) my wife professionally netted a fin perfect Sewin of about 4lbs. Typically the hook then fell out in the net. What a start and what a beautiful fish, a bar of silver with a few pale red spots and an incredible electric blue sheen to the operculum. Watching it swim off back into the gin clear water was a moment I'll never forget.
After that exciting start I felt like I really couldn't care less whether I caught anything or not for the rest of the day. This was obviously short lived and soon I found myself eagerly flicking a fly into every likely looking pool and riffle.
Sadly the Sewin did prove to be the only fish of the day. I was surprised at how quiet the river was considering the lovely conditions. We eventually found one pool showing a few subtle signs of surface feeding fish but despite our best efforts we were unable to tempt any.
There are so many features to fish along this beat that you need an entire day to cover them all. For this reason we ran out time to explore the upper stretch of the Crai river. Along with the stunning scenery and the abundance of wildlife such as kingfishers and pied flycatchers we shall return.

As the day came to an end we bumped into a local chap near the bridge who started telling us about how few rises he observes now compared to the days when "the pools would boil with rising fish". He then went on to partly blame Chernobyl for the decline and although I don't necessarily agree with him, especially as it is still a little early in the year and the river was quite low, it does make one wonder whether it is part of a natural cycle or whether something not so natural is partly to blame...

Thanks as always WUF!

1 Other

The conditions were difficult with both anglers using light tackle casting into a strong headwind all day. Water levels were unusually low with some parts of the river being ankle deep where 1ft would have been ideal. This also meant that the water was cold for the time of year.
Both anglers fished a duo setup with an indicator Klinkhammer above various nymph patters (small Olive patterns - gold headed).
We managed 6 fish between us with two points of the day producing fish (around midday when the sun appeared and the last hour fishing from 6pm – fishing the runs near the bridge). Fish consisted of weights up to 1 lb. Not many fish seen throughout the day and felt because of the low waters they may have moved down river.
Not many rises seen and any hatches were very minimal because of the wind and temperature throughout the day.

6 Trout

Good conditions in the morning warm overcast light rain. One fish lost after a solid take (shed hook after a few minuits)

1 Chub