Feedback & Reports

2 x grayling 7 and 15 inches, 2 x out of season trout 10 and 11 inches, bugging with braid. I lost a good grayling at the top end at dusk. Very hard work to get those, although the Monnow looked in just about perfect condition, which is rather surprising with the high water elsewhere.

Nice day out on this beat. Air temp 8 degrees water temp 7 degrees, water quite clear and low for winter. Managed to wade in most places where it was required to try and get best out of fishing. Struggled to find grayling with only a couple of pulls early on in the day. Only one female grayling to TH of about 1/2 lb late in the day to save us from a blank.

Nil return

Surprisingly the water level was quite low with just a tinge of colour. Started off wet and windy but gradually improved as the day progressed. Hard fishing but had a short successfull spell (approx midday) when landed 3 decent grayling between 1 and 1.75lb. All cheque nymphing just downstream from the brick barbecue.

1 Trout approx 8oz. 1 x Grayling approx 1½lbs.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the secret behind catching Grayling in the winter is to find where they are. That is exactly what I failed to do today so the scorers were not to be troubled. Not sure why; the river looked just about spot on and, in spite of the nasty, strong wind, the air temperature - if not the water temperature - was around 10 degrees higher that it had been last week. Cormorants - which I suspect had been rather more successful that I - at both ends of the beat.

Only one small out-of-season wild trout caught (on a Czech nymph). I covered most of the beat, fishing with a variety of nymps at different depths, but couldn't locate any shoals of grayling. A few large dark olives started to come off around mid-day but it didn't spark any fish interest. On the plus side, there was plenty of wildlife and the snowdrops in front of the holiday cottage were looking impressive (they will be even better by this coming weekend).

We arrived at 8.30am to find the river high enough to cover a lot of the concrete path by the parking area. We went up river some 500 yds and set up and stayed in one place as the weather was very windy and not the sort of day to be moving swims. One rod had a barbel of about 4lb within half an hour of starting which was very pleasing, shortly after the other rod had a chub of about the same weight. By the end of the day the other rod had caught just the one barbel and I managed a barbel and 3 chub. Barbel came out on pellet and the chub came to sweetcorn. Nice and mild but less wind would have been so much nicer.

A very enjoyable day pike fishing. 4 pike, 3 between 5 and 7lbs and one 21lbs all caught in a large eddy behind a concrete croy. One large silver salmon seen following plug; not sure whether it was an early springer or a kelt. Looking forward to next visit.

21 grayling to trotted maggot. Four fish over 2 lb, including two at 2 lb 8 oz.