Feedback & Reports

Second day on Glan-yr-Afon. Still tough fishing due to the low water and bright sunshine. However, managed 12 fish in total, most on nymphs fished down through the faster runs and pocket water. Three of the fish were 12", two were 10" and the rest were 8" or less. Really lovely bit of water. Can imagine that it is fantastic if you catch it on the right day.

2 rods, 1 brown trout approx. 1½ lbs, returned, barbless hook on a Diawl Bach. Very windy on day 2 making it a hard but still enjoyable day.

6 x Trout. Smallest 6", largest 10"

15 x trout 10-15 inches, mostly on a Parachute Adams. There are a couple of advantages to this very low water. Firstly you can explore the river bed in detail to the advantage of later fishing in more normal flows. And secondly you can wade through places you would never get through normally and fish them. In fact it turned out to be a very nice dry fly day. And, guess what - the mayfly is up! A few began to hatch off about 4 pm and after a bit a couple of trout began to react with those lovely "ker-splosh" rises. I have another report of mayfly from the middle Usk. 3rd May is very early, but everything seems to be early this spring after the heat-wave weather.

Down beat 06.30am after night shift for breath of fresh air. Cold sunny morning with mist rising off the Wye, stunning ambience! Not optomistic as river extremely low. 1 salmon kelt possibly just into double figures unhooked in the water and swam off at reasonable pace.
Caught in fast oxygenated flow just 10mtrs below the island where there is a deeper hole (the barbel hole) on pink and copper bladed flying C fished deep and slow, held back against current. Are there any more late kelt holed up in pools as these waiting for a flush to take them to the sea as we seem to be seeing many salmon in this area of the river lately.
Early twait shad shoal seen above island on Friday that seems to have moved on up river. Large 20lb plus spawn laden pike and attending jacks and also barbel spawning in shallows easily seen due to the low water. Exceptionally large hatches of Mayfly and similar of late.

6 trout up to 11.5 in

6 fish caught, the best a cracker at just under 3lbs. Others were up to 1lb. All returned. Bright sun and a cool easterly wind didn't help but fish were moving tight under the banks and tree cover. All fish caught on dry olive imitations. Lovely day.

Cracking beat. Some lovely glides and pools, interspersed with fantastic cascades and riffles. River very low and clear after the hottest April on record! Rod one caught nothing, rod two had five fish of 7", 9", 10", 10" and 16.5". Epic spinner fall in the evening of tiny (size 16-18) upwinged flies. Possibly BWOs? Unfortunately had no spinners this small. However, the biggest fish took a BWO pattern flattened to resemble a spinner! Lost a really big fish of 20"+ that took a Deer Hair Emerger.

2 rods, 2 brown trout each, all under 9", all returned, barbless hooks used on small goldhead hares ear nymphs.

2 x trout 6-8 inches. I was lucky to get those, because I confess I made a real mess of this one. My advice would be to avoid doing what I did, which was to try to fish it with a chilly half gale blowing across the fields. There is no shelter, because the brook is not sunk far below ground level so the wind just blusters away. Holding the brim of my hat down with my left hand I was trying to cast the fly some distance up the narrow channel with my right and failing miserably. Having stated that, the stream is stuffed with trout - that much became plain after proceeding up it with polarised glasses as I spooked one after another. Lots of 10/11 inch fish. It's a bit like a Cotswold stream, upper Coln maybe, with a nice bed of clean gravel and sumptuous water weed. I'll be back, but hopefully next time on a nice, warm, still afternoon with fish rising all the way up ...