Feedback & Reports

My first time on this beat and I was delighted to see rising fish from the off. With the river really low and clear I was assisted with some cloud cover until mid afternoon and ended up with 8 fish.
The highlight was 2 beautifull fish taken on consecutive casts and both a fraction under 20". All fish taken on small dries with 15` leader.

2 Grayling 12" & 14", 1 "very large" Brown Trout lost at net!

A lovely day on a charming beat, but the fishing was challenging due probably to low water and bright sun. Only 3 small trout (less than 1/2 lb each) caught (and returned). All caught on nymphs (pheasant tail and non-specific Czech nymphs). One decent fish (probably 1 or 1 1/2 lbs was played for a brief time and lost). Very few fish were rising, despite a huge hatch in the late afternoon/early evening. Dry flies were tried without success.

24 trout from 1lb to 0.05lb! Great Day.

Six brown trout to 10", 1 salmon par, 1 grayling. An excellent days fishing, river a little shallow, but fishable. All fish caught with a single fly, a sedge olive. Banks are now getting to be a little overgrown with nettles etc.

A few rises - 1 WBT 10 inches on GRHE above weir. Apart from that nothing. One day I will get the measure of this beat.

What a cracking little river, every type of water you could wish for. I thought the road would be too noisy but no, the rushing water and Kingfishers soon drowned that out.
I'm no good at naming fly patterns, I just copy what's in/on the water and being taken by the fish, but there was so much 'natural' going on I tried everything that matched; black, grey winged or brown caught. Only 3 x Brown Trout of 8-10 inch and an out of season grayling of about 1lb on the dropper(dry) and nothing but dozens of dace on the point(beaded nymphs) but a better man would not have missed all the other takes...! I never got to the top of the beat, too deep for me to wade after the gully above the weir and couldn't find a route on the bank due to the electric fence but this section is deep and slow with not much surface activity but I would love to trott a stick float through for the huge chub I saw basking in the sun! Sorry, that just slipped out...

River very low. Nothing rising despite abundant insect life throughout the day. Nothing caught despite 3 runs at the stretch using a variety of nymphs and wets. Well maintained and should be great fun when the water gets to a decent level (and the fish return?).

Hard days fishing. Not much happening plenty of black gnat, and the odd olive. A dozen trout to half a pound on a mixture of dries and nymphs. One tiny grayling.

One canoeist even on 'drought flows'! Heard my first Cookoo of the year.

We only managed to start around 2.30. With only sporadic rises I elected to fish the fast water with klink and dink. After a couple of hours I had 1 smolt and an 8oz trout to show for my efforts, both of which took the small nymph.
About 4.30 it started to cloud over and I came across a quality fish rising in a fast gutter. After wading into position to cover it, it stopped rising so I waited for 10 mins for it to rise again. First cast was perfect and it took the klinkhammer immediately with a great boil...and then snapped me. Turned out it was not the 2lb point that failed but rather the water knot joining the 5 to 3.5!

An hour or so later we came across a pod of quality fish rising steadily in a pool tail. After a half a dozen fly changes and countless seemingly perfect presentations they were still rising steadily and I was about to tear my hair out. I turned to my friend and said, "this is ridiculous". Immediately a great neb appeared and sucked in the small black klink I had on. A mad rush upstream saw the reel scream and finished in a great leap that tested the 2lb point to the limit. Somehow we stayed in contact and a few minutes later a superb 21”er slid over my net.

Didn't cast again, just sat on bank taking in what had just happened and then walked back to the car to earn some brownie points by getting back in time for kids bathtime...