Feedback & Reports

5 x trout 11 - 17 inches, spiders, Super Pupa and Roman Moser's Emerging Caddis. My first time on this beat, which will probably repay taking some time to understand, although I do fish Kemys downstream. Chainbridge has a well-deserved reputation for salmon and the Rock Pool looks like a great bit of salmon fly-fishing. For the man with a trout rod: well, a more than usually frustrating grannom hatch, missing many more fish than hit, the fly coming off in waves until the water looked like soup with the empty caddis shucks. At 5 o'clock, always worth waiting for, the spectacular sight of the females migrating upstream like a column of smoke. I didn't touch the lower pools recommended for trout, due to a persistent half gale blowing up the stretch and a friendly WUF team busily coppicing the bank. Other fauna seen: a very large grass snake swimming across the river, which turned back on spotting me - a sight which used to be common along with the little water vole, but not in recent years. Plus lots of salmon parr, some of which are already showing signs of adopting their silvery smolt coats.

Five browns and one 15" grayling, the latter on a mini bead-head spider - all trout on march brown or klinkhammer. Some olives and march browns, a few grannom hatching, cold downstream wind and sparse rises.

No fish caught. One of possibly up to 2lbs lost after a brief tussle though - on hare's ear. One or two other takes but nothing landed.
Slight lull in very brisk SW wind seemed to prompt a small hatch of LDO late morning but apart from that there was little surface fly life (as far as my limited experience could indicate...).
Great to be out of the water - thanks WUF.

8 Brown 6" to 9".

11 Brown trout, between 12 and 15 inches, all returned. A mix of stockfish and some wild, great hatch of grannom and a steady trickle of march browns, which they seemed to prefer when it came to rises and fish hooked.

Very blustery day, wind and rain kept the fly life firmly sub surface. This is a very interesting beat the parts that are not impounded by the weirs are classic Lugg and some of the most picturesque water you will find any where in the catchment. Although the day was slightly marred by the constant attention of the cows who always seemed to want to wade in the pool I was about to fish next. Still I managed 5 BT up to about 12 inches and 6 out of season grayling the best of which was real conker measuring in at somewhere around 50cm. Why is it that grayling get so ugly when they reach these sort of sizes?

1 x 1lb, 1 x 12oz. Hares ear nymph - very sparse hatch LDO little activity.

Perfect fishing day. Rise started about 11.45 continued till till 5.00. Numerous trout to 14" and a few grayling. A mixed rise of flies - few grannom odd march brown, iron blues and a few dark olives. River showing its bones - you can now wade across to the other bank. Best to fish the runs. Caught most fish on ginger sedge this colour I find I can see best in most lights. It was worth plugging away in the fast runs again and again. Some heavy tugs and one break from fish unseen. Lookimg forward to next visit.

River very low and I managed to spook a large trout in the shallows early on. A hatch started about 11.30am. Finally I found a feeding fish and switched from my nymph to a dry quill paradun and a lovely 2lb+ fish was netted and returned. There was a lovely pool just upstream from the vicarage pool with at least half a dozen fish feeding but they did not like the look of my flies so I had to settle for one for the day. Certainly would like to return some day. One comment - why would anyone want to retain trout from here as the population seems fragile in number but of good average size. Lovely day.

Out on the home turf again this morning. Having fished off and on last week, and having seen plenty of LDOs in the hour either side of midday, I was absolutely amazed to see a substantial number of grannom hatching from about 10.30 am. this morning - nothing before then. As Oliver says in his earlier report from Glanusk, this is really very early (I did see about half a dozen grannom on the Usk near Gilwern at the back end of last week though as well, but too few to interest any fish). Today however, the fish were after the emerging pupae as the grannom appeared once each passing cloud had gone. With each pulse of sun, the grannom lifted off and the fish then rose. As usual when the sun went in, so emergence ceased and the fish went down....and so it went on until about 1pm. Trout and grayling taken on my shuttlecock and parachute grannom pupa emerger patterns and some fish on dark olive patterns as well, once they emerged later on. If you are interested in grannom pupa emerger tying details and missed them in T and S, or in FF and FT in recent years, they are now published in an article on the Gwent Angling Society website. Maybe Wednesday's forecast rain will slow things down a bit and set back these very early hatches? March Grannom - just amazing!