Feedback & Reports

Great beat. Very very cold, wet and windy - the weather did not do too much for the fishing. Still caught two trout and two grayling).

The most secluded and remote of all the beats on the Usk I have fished, with a great variety of water. Had an otter playing around in the water, just 30 feet away from me, for about 10 mins - totally unpeturbed by my presence (it only went after I had to go and rescue my bag, as I thought it was about to grab my lunch). Wet, dull day, with only a few fish rising during the entire day. After a long fight, caught 1 x lovely 18 inch trout, on a March brown - safely returned.

7 brown trout , best 11" plus one smolt. All returned.
PS. This beat is shorter than described. Nearer 1,000 yards i.e. just over half a mile.

Not a particularly encouraging start , cold windy and dull.
Water very very low , very difficult to nymph so we tried, despite the lack of fish rising, tempting fish out of the margins with yellow may duns and Adams. Worked very well had about twelve fish between us, 4 about 8 inch the rest around 12. 2 of the smaller fish were grayling, the rest browns.

Stayed at the Wellington in in Brecon, clean room , ensuite, good breakfast, £46, not bad! Only problem no parking, but parked 2 minutes down the road

The french anglers are coming back with most beautifull views in their heads. We would like to thank you to help us, without your difficulties, to make our dream reality. We catch (and release!) most beautifull fishes. We hope to see you soon.
My friend would like a W&U Foundation Passeport, could you please send me one?

First time for me on the beat and its a big piece of river, took some time to find my way around. Very cold, felt more like March, warmed up a bit in the afternoon. Fishing risng spradically but nothing consistent. Some olives around midday, yellow may duns in the afternoon and evening. Caught 6 on the day none bigger than 8 inches, 50/50 dries and nymphs.

5 x Trout
1 x Grayling

Another cold morning so, with nothing hatching, if you will forgive the innuendo, I started on a nymph just above the weir. Very slow and almost back up to the car before I caught the first fish - a grayling of about 1lb on a GRHE. Much warmer by then with a few flys (mostly PWOs) hatching and the odd fish on the top. Switching to a dry and targeting rising fish, I picked up 5 trout through the afternoon. Some quality fish - I needed the net for all of them with two of them at 1lb plus.

8 x trout 8 - 17 inches; best fish 2 x 16 inches, 1 x 17 inches. A slow start on a very cold morning, 3 degrees when I got there from Swansea and a dusting of snow on the Beacon peaks overnight. River also very low, which makes some of the pools difficult. But olives hatching as it warmed up and a few hawthorns around; the odd fish prepared to come up to spiders during the morning and the Bridge pool is always good for a few. After lunch, though, a serious hatch of ? brought some nice wild fish steadily on the rise. I was going to type march browns there, but all this talk of correct identification and false march browns has made me lose confidence a bit. A specimen in alcohol is on its way by post to the Foundation and if it turns out to be large brook dun, you are going to have to forgive me! The main thing is the trout seemed to be really keen on them and a Deer's Hair Emerger with a prominent wing turned out to be the medicine of the day.

6 trout to 10" 3 Grayling to 7" caught on green bead head hare's ear nymph apart from one trout on cdc dry olive. All returned. Not much fly hatching. Lost my metal frame snowbee hand net but apart from that most enjoyable day in beautiful location.

Lower Henllan is a tough mistress...her mercurial qualities will often punish rather than reward. So when a friend suggested that I might try Lower Henllan for a few hours fishing, I set off for said beat with the kind doomladen optimism usually associated with someone heading for the guillotine... "heck it will all be over before I can work out what's happened"

The first few hundred yards of the beat seemed to bear out my misgivings. It's not that I didn't feel as though I were fishing well, searching the pockets and seams thoroughly, and generally really on top of my game... it's just that old wrinkled brow from someone who has been turned over by the beat... "I don't think there are many fish here"... Well eventually I disproved that theory by landing a feisty 10" fish but the earth still wasn't really moving for me and I was contemplating moving to somewhere "more reliable". I am soooooo glad I didn't.

Whether it was the steepness of the walk back to the car or some other unseen force guiding me... I had a look "around the corner" as they say and loh and behold three fish rsing in one pool. A steady trickle of chunky large brook duns were being snaffled in the glassy tail of a pool. My first cast out the first two fish down and my second bumped the third fish... a beauty too. Thus heartened I progressed upstream and by now the trickle of LBDs had become a full on, in-yer-face hatch. A slow shallow pool tail revealed more rising fish, and God they looked good, lazily relaxed in their feeding, sometimes a chomping swirl, sometimes a tiny imperceptible sip - those'll be the small ones I thought to myself. Head for the chompers first. Surrounded by slippy banks, all manner of twiggy cr4p and a large family of ducks, my one chance to get in amongst 'em seemed to be doomed at the outset. But today... the fishing gods smiled on me. For once I was able to creep in to the right position without doing my wilderbeest act, the casts just unfolded and let in the positions I wanted them to... and the fish rose... each and every one of them. I bumped three and had four to hand... From that pool came two fish at 14", one at 15" and one at 16". Oh... and those tiny imperceptible sips? There were no "small ones"... just sixteen inches of ballistic brown trout with a guidance system zeroed in on the home rootballs. It was an incredible experience... and probably the best I have ever fished in terms of technique and approach... and I'd say the same if all the fish had been 8". It was just fantastic to be in that place at that time when those fish were rising, all requiring a great deal of thought to work out. I was somewhat drained after that experience but went on to take a few more including, incredibly, another 15" fish.

Lower Henllan a tough mistress? She certainly is, but when she wants to play... well there is nowhere I'd rather be on the planet. The Honddu is in fantastic form at present. Get out and grab some whilst you can.