Feedback & Reports

Beautiful beat, hot, sunny, little water, no fish caught

A day on the Usk with a beginner to river fishing. Met up with Martin around 10 am and after an hour on casting techniques we headed down to the bottom of the beat. As we sat watching the pool discussing rivercraft and the merits of various techniques a hatch of March Browns began. The fish were on to them immediately. After A couple of missed fish due to to quick a strike it was fish on but unfortunately off again before we got it to the net. The hatch petered out by 12.30 and due to the wrm sunny day never really got going again. The rest of the day was spent covering various methods and one fish was caught and a few more missed. The river was very low and as clear as I have ever seen it. Stealth and fishing from ones knees are advisable in these conditions.
Saw several FEBs through out the day, I hope we don't have a repeat of last year when on a single day I counted over 20 mergansers on this beat.

5 WBT to the net between 2 rods. Three fish were around the 1 - 1.5lb mark. All taken on #18 olive sparkle dun targeted at rising fish. In the warm weather, the hatches were well under-way when we arrived at 10.30am. 4 of the fish were in the net before 11.30am! Plenty of olives and March Browns hatching off. Fish were still risking at dusk although they appeared to switch to midge and were far more difficult to tempt, even with the smallest of flies. A few sedge were hatching at the end of the day also. A very pleasant day to be on the river.

No fish caught but a very pleasant day on the river.

Fantastic day, too many trout & grayling to keep count, both to 17 inches. All but a few caught on h/e emergers, rising most of the day to L/D Olives on the water likewise. Need to get back up there soon. Only down side was losing a wooden landing net which may well be as far down stream now as Hereford. WHERE ARE THE TROUT ANGLERS?

Great afternoon, few flies hatching, no fish caught. Too many goosanders.

A fantastic day weather wise wasn't quite matched by the fishing! 2 WBT caught on size 20 PTN's fished NZ style under a klinkhammer. Both small, about 6". A small hatch of olives early afternoon, but no fish seen rising all day. Tried dries in the flats, nymphs in the riffles and bugs in the holes, to no avail. Beautiful beat, saw a kingfisher doing a low flyby, which is always a nice sight. Thanks to Seth for pointing me in the direction of this lovely, tranquil beat.

Ach, a blank ledgering with worms but that's probably my lameness - certainly missed a couple. A few trout coming to the surface. Wish I'd taken the fly rod but it was just a quick exploratory visit.

Many of the beats booked up, so I defaulted to an as low down the river beat as I could book, and so booked Wyebank. Not fished this beat before and probably wouldn't again on a warm Saturday, with the World and his wife on the water.
River very low, although there is some good fly water on this short beat, the constant flow of canoes over any fish that were present, I think contributed to keeping the fish either very low or in deeper water. Saying that spent nearly all the time on the fly and had two reasonable pulls, but inexplicably I failed to connect with either.
Did 'land' one 6 inch salmon parr which took a liking to my tube fly.

I had a lovely day and met up with Don who game me an update.
I saw four fish but didn't catch a salmon; however I did catch a 5.1 lb pike which I released back.