Feedback & Reports

Nice little river can't think why I have not fished it before.
2 x 12 inch grayling and 2 out of season trout. Dry fly and nymph fished NZ style.

19 x grayling 8-17 inches, 8 x out of season trout 6-10 inches, long trotting with maggots. This was a cold, dull day with the river at medium height. A very few l Large Dark Olives hatched after lunch but nothing now rising. The catch included a couple of small grayling, two at 17 inches, but the rest were all pretty solid ones in the 14-16 inch range - a reasonably reassuring review of Irfon grayling stocks. I removed other people's bait hooks from two fish: a reminder that this beat is quite hard fished nowadays.
There were moments of excitement at the end of the day. An out of season salmon, and a large one at that, suddenly decided a small red maggot would be pleasant to chew on. The float disappeared in a very determined way. Rather than sulk on the bottom for a bit, this fish commenced to go horsing up and down the pool at once, provoking the check mechanism of the 50 year old centre pin reel I was using to making the kind of noises not normally heard by grayling fishers - first deep growls and then a chain saw like buzz. Meanwhile my thoughts were running along the lines of "how are we going to manage to deal with this then?" Particularly so as dusk was coming on. Probably it was all for the best that the tiny hook came out during one of the leaps - I got all my tackle back and the salmon, while he was certainly irritated, was surely not compromised by the brief connection.

6 rainbow trout caught on worm.

Cut down all my tackle for the long walk, 45mins later was fishing on this picturesque section. Unfortunately no fish, but a nice day out.

Hard, hard day. River up again over night and powering through. Managed a 3lb chub late in the afternoon on crust. Highlight of day was as I crossed the bridge a stoat was crossing towards me, he lept on to the stone pillar and then lept into the river 18ft below and swam across the powerfull flow and climbed up the steep bank and was gone. Loads of game birds about, the area is a big sporting estate. Will be back in a few weeks time.
Well done The Wye and Usk Foundation.

I am new to river fishing but had recieved some expert tuition in the previous few days. Unfortunately I completely blanked! I tried for barbel in the faster water using halibut, red robin pellets and pepperami and trotting for chub with cheese paste and maggot.

Gromain and Ty-Nywedd. 4 rods. 29 grayling, best around 1.5lb. A B got two chub around 5lb each, while J R returned 14 grayling. Ty-Nywedd fished fairly well to the fly (9 grayling, to French nymph tactics and standard upstream wet and/or dry fly.) We all caught trout (the boys got around 40 down at Gromain) and saw a big (c.20lb) salmon at Ty-Nywedd.

Lovely water, but no sign of fish rising and a cold blustery downstream wind convinced us that 1 ½ hours was more than enough. Water temperature 47F. We caught one decent grayling (around the 2 lb mark).
The Wye valley and the river were spectacularly beautiful and both (part-time) anglers thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

5 grayling to 15" caught on a dry fly CDC Quill.

River looked in good condition with a slight peaty colour. Caught 8 OOS BT between 6 and 12" and one grayling about 12" on tugsten head red tag spider point or pink tungsten head PTN dropper. Lost 5 or 6. The point fly was tied on a jig hook and this seems to help avoiding snagging as it bounces along the bottom. Access is challenging along the road section but worth the effort once I'd located the fish. Didn't get to end of the beat as my waders sprung a leak and my very wet leg and foot eventually made me give up. This seems to be a good value beat - thanks as always W&U.