Feedback & Reports

River to high to fish

1 Trout

No fish caught.

Wonderful spot. Spent a couple of hours in the evening. Didn’t see a single fish. Possibly spent too long at the lower end of the beat and so ran out of time to explore the deeper pools at the top end. My first wild stream, but will be back.

3 small trout to about 8" on a Klinkhammer. Very few signs of fish feeding despite a Mayfly hatch.

3 Trout

2 Trout

Good river flows but not a huge amount of activity in shallower runs today. Some flies hatching in the afternoon but the fish weren't taking these. The 3 trout were caught in the deeper holes using a contact nymphing method. Good size fish - 29cm, 28cm and 25cm. A beautiful stretch of wild river set in a stunning valley.

3 Trout

4 Trout

Nothing caught, lost a little one, and saw no rises. Was a bit cold and had just rained.
Saw something very briefly appear from a gap in the bank but not sure on identification, could have been a pole cat or mink? Was very dark brown/black, 30cm ish and not obvious where face/chest?

The beat was as beautiful as ever although the level seemed a little low. I think the recommendation for a 7-8ft rod in the beat description might need revising - I fished with a 6'6" 2wt and still found plenty of parts tight and never felt in danger of not being able to cast far enough.
There was a vast amount of fly life around from the time I started (10am) with upwings of all sizes and shades as well as some stonefly. I started with a very small olive CDC pattern which induced a rise from something very small but after 90mins I hadn't seen a single rise to the naturals so switched to nymphs. A lot of the beat is only shin-deep so I tried all colours and sizes through the odd deeper channel and pockets but only had a gentle pull on a black magic nymph. About 2/3 of the way along the beat around 2pm I finally saw a fish rising to a large, pale-coloured upwing so I switched leaders and went for one of Jonathan Barnes' soft hackle dry flys which immediately got a lovely 7" trout. Dries are so much more fun to fish so I kept the pattern on for the rest of the beat and covered the ankle-deep as well as the knee-seep sections. This resulted in perhaps 15-20 more splashy rises from very small fish even though they were not rising to anything else. Most didn't stay on but I had to unhook a couple of 3" tiddlers and one at 5". I only saw one more fish rising to naturals and, once I covered it, it turned out to be a really lovely, hard-fighting trout of about 11".

This is a thoroughly gorgeous beat and the river is obviously healthy - every stone is covered in caddis larvae and mayly nymphs. I may have seen an otter at distance sliding very quickly out onto the bank ahead of me about half-way up but I definitely saw a mink trotting around bold as brass and working the pools in the lower half of the beat, at one point it jumped onto a rock 5ft from me with a trout in its jaws and we stared at one another. It might be that which makes the trout population maybe feel a little more juvenile than when I used to fish it a few years ago. Aside from the one decent fish, everything I saw was quite small.

3 Trout