Feedback & Reports

river getting lower, focused on pocket water, great lunch at cafe again.

5 Trout

1 Trout

2 Trout

Also a bright day with some cloud; generally some wind, with a few gusts. River very low again this early in the summer. Fish seen rising on the far side/bank. Cast a variety of klinks, para's, other dry flies in smaller sized to receive quick bites.

A couple of nice specimens and some very pretty trout, but nothing too sizeable. All fish safely returned to the river as usual.

4 Trout, 6 Grayling

2 Trout

Back to an old favourite this morning !! Having been camping a couple of days , Mrs A was catching up with some friends in Shrewsbury so I bimbled off to Litton once all the chores were done ....

Should have really left if another couple of hours to be fair ... lots of mayfly and Coch y Bonddu beetles in the meadow bordering the Lugg from about eleven ish ...in fact it was a plethora of upwings .. three missed fish on a big mohican mayfly so from eleven I did down size to a fourteen para Adams .... my six foot , two weight isn't a happy bunny casting big bumbling flies anyway !!!

I also fished club water this morning equally successful and fish savagely hitting my Parachute Pheasant tail initially ..... Great fun ...

A good stamp of fish this morning ..some lugg beauties and the risers I cast too I had !!! Good fish .. three off them were thirteen inches plus ... and lovely colours too , as always.... had a slow bimble back up to the farm after doing just over half the beat ... some negotiating of fallen trees needed .. but careful casting and you get a response !! Shallow and cold I'd describe the lugg at the mo !! Although in fairness still holding a bit of water .. and the cascob brook on the drive down is running so still collecting water from other days rain .....

A fun few hours , still not fully switched on to the big mays yet ..... and only picking off the easy obvious sitters !!! Still , some great sport this morning ... off home and I do believe some log splitting is waiting for me !! Joyous ..... a nice start to the weekend .....

9 Trout

1 Trout

Missed two fish the morning due to rusty river tactics :) the sun and heat put the fish down during the day. Couldn't fish the evening unfortunately as this is likely the best time.

River impassable 300 yds from lower access point - had to return. Better from the bridge upwards. Most of fish seen were sensibly in most inaccessible spots…

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