Feedback & Reports

Beautiful stretch of water and very scenic, the water was low and clear with salmon parr and browns topping most of the day but taking very small flies. DC caught 4 browns around 6-9 inches, DB 6 browns & 2 salmon parr, GC one nice brown about 1.25lbs. All fish returned.

One of us is a beginner who unfortunately blanked but thoroughly enjoyed the day. The other rod had a cracking day, fifteen Brownies despite a nasty wind and very low, gin clear water.

A lovely beat, well maintained and very scenic.

1 fish each in the morning then some good sport in evening to skated sedge in the faster sections of the lower beat. Not a lot happening in sweltering heat and low water. Best fish around 16”

Arrived at Glan Usk, fish rising in the tail of the fast water above the bridge, got one about 12” on an Adams missed two others, the rest of the fish lost interest.

Drove down to the bottom beat, lots of fish rising but not apparently interested in anything I had in my fly box, changed flies regularly until I couldn’t see to tie knots.
What ever they were taking it was they were “sipping” them from the surface. Sometimes with a head and tail rise action, rather than a “snatch”

11 brown trout caught,between 3/4lb and 1.5lbs. all returned. 7 of these were 1 lb or over. Some of these were quite difficult to catch, as they were constantly turning on hatching nymphs just below the surface, and ignoring dry flies just above them. most were taken on parachute adams and parachute black gnat sz. 16. wondeful beat!

Bright warm day with a gentle breeze. The river a little lower than seasonal. Little more fly life with occasional signs of fish rising. More enjoyable day with four fish caught. Two in the morning and two late afternoon. Caught on a mixture of nymphs and wet fly.

Cracking day with a double figure catch of trout, the best was just under 2.5lbs. Some good hatches of Yellow Mays, Medium Olives, Grannom and even some March Browns which the trout hammered.

Strong downstream wind again but some fish rising in the more sheltered spots. Grannom hatching in good numbers all day. 3 other people fishing the beat with the permission of the estate including a relative of one of the staff. This made for some pressure on the productive/sheltered spots.
VC - 5 - most on nymph - PT and Hares Ear, GB 3 on dries - Klink and CDC shuttlecock.

Overall thoughts

We chose to fish dries most of the time but given the amount of G. hatching the numbers of fish rising were quite small. It clearly seemed that if one was after numbers of fish then nymphing would have been more productive. It was great to see such large hatches. A very pleasant 4 days but it is noticeable that the interruptions from walkers/stick throwers/picknickers seems to be increasing year on year. Also it is a touch galling to find other fishing fairly limited beats with the owners permission. We were not expecting that 5 anglers would be fishing the Glan Usk beat given the 'premium' price of £70 for 2 of us.

Plenty of fish rising in the two pools in the upper section. Got four about 10 inches ona mixture of Adams and emergers, lost about the same again. Got another three on a hares ear klink on the fast run just below the church, again about 10 inches.

In the afternoon fished the tail of the fast run at the bottom of the beat. Got 6 very nice fish 12- 14 inches in about 90 minutes, on a klink with two nymphs, honours shared equally between the two nymphs and the Klink.

Great days fishing.

Clouds of grannom when we arrived and we caught and released 6 fish before lunch as well as "missing" other firm offers. As well as grannom, Tups and olive cdc flies were effective. Change of wind in the afternoon brought a sharp chill to the river and rising fish were rarely found in the lower half of the beat so there were no further catches. There was only one other trout rod on the river and we wondered whether it was strictly necessary to split the fishing between morning and afternoon sections if there are no salmon rods on the beat?