Feedback & Reports

Hoorah! Finally managed to extract a salmon from Llyn Em. In fact I hooked two, but the bigger one got off (mid double). The smaller was a 27" hen fish taken from Middle Caban and put up a terrific scrap but swam off strongly on release. It made my day.

Had only my second day on the beat yesterday and returned covered in glory.

Hooked and landed a very black but very strong cock about 7lb by the Yew Tree in the Spring Pool c9am. Fished that out and started down the Cottage Pool in a somewhat prefunctory manner having hardly any expectation of anything in there and promptly hooked a very bright little grilse of about 5lb. Drove round to the other side and scoured the Boards and nearly went to lunch but thought I ought to try the tail of Bach Howey. Fiddled about trying to fish round the big rock with too short a line which did not seem to be very effective, so I cast a longer line and figure of eighted it back and wallop! Ten minutes later I had a dark 10lb Hen in the net and then duly photographed and returned.

At this point my luck changed and the ungrateful brute whacked my digital camera with its tail and deposited it in the Wye. I replaced it today for ?80 which I must say is a price I would have gladly paid for a day like that and the photographs survived. Thanks for an excellent day.

I just had to write to extol the virtues of fishing for wild brown trout on the river Usk aided by Frank Williams.

Firstly the Usk, we fished the Glan-Yr-Afon beat right at the end of the season and it was a beautiful beat. The water was wide enough in places to allow casting with ease in most places with some novice tight stretches to test the roll cast, and fast water to sink some heavy nymphs in. With mountains in the distance set in secluded woodland with an ancient single track bridge marking the start of the beat it was all you could ask of a Welsh wild brown trout river, and though the conditions were not perfect we could see the trout, but getting them out would be the test.

Without Franks help me and my friend (both virgins to river fly fishing for trout) would have struggled. My friend Phil had only picked up the fly rod this year and I have mainly fished stillwaters since a lad with some spinning for salmon. His assistance was far and above what we expected he managed to cram into just a few hours, he taught us how to roll cast and the importance of mending line, how to read the river and what was hatching. He had even visited the day before and tied some fly?s to match the hatches he had seen for us to use. We were then shown the Northern method of fishing spiders, Czech Nymphing, and the New Zealand dropper method. Plus he even brewed up a tea and had lunch with us, giving far to many pointers to mention. My friend said his casting had come on leaps and bounds thanks to Frank & I had picked up some great new techniques and tips, truly invaluable.

The outcome was that I managed to catch two brownies between 6?-8? with two more 10? and the first one of the day (just 3 casts after instructions from Frank ended and I started fishing in earnest) a cracking 15? of Wild Hard Fighting Brownie that made my day!

I cant thank enough both The Wye and Usk Foundation for the sterling work they do enabling us to fish this great Welsh wild brown trout river, and Frank Williams a committed, passionate angler who is a great coach!

I fished the Court Of Noke section of the Arrow yesterday which considering the amount of rain that we had prior to my visit remained low and clear, I must say I wasn't too optimistic initially but shortly after starting to fish I lost a fish which was a good sign.

Flies were coming off the water all day and there were one or two fish rising to them but most of my success was on the nymph which produced a total of 9 fish and quite a few lost.

I have attached a couple of photos (not very good quality I'm afraid), one of the grayling (17 1/2") and one of the trout (16 1/2") which is hard to believe you can catch out of a river the size of the Arrow, this really is a little gem if your prepared to lose a few flies on the trees and vegetation!.

As always all fish returned safely.

Keep up the good work.

Excellent day's fishing with good evidence of habitat maintenance. Kept company by a patrolling kingfisher all day. Hooked and lost a fantastic bright silver grilse c6-8lbs. Spent 3/4 of the day on fly but wihtout luck.
Will definitely return to try again. Returned the caught salmon (8-9lbs) - slightly reddening but in very good condition.

Just a note re the fishing at Winforton and Middle Hill Court on 13th, 14th Sept. Winforton was tough going, could have done with a bit more water but managed a good chub of about 5lb and a couple of small brownies on the fly.

Met up with Adam Fisher at Middle Hill Court who gave us a really useful and detailed intro to the water. Fishing and surroundings were stunning. Both the fly fishing barbel virgins I had with me caught good fish and absolutely loved it. I?ve attached a couple of pics which I think sum the day up better than words can. 10 in total without really trying too hard including 3, 9lbers. All absolute mint condition. On an interesting note the barbel were jumping out of the water around us throughout the day ? never seen that before.

Thanks for the recommendation for Kilsby house. The wife and I stayed at the house for a few days last week and had a great time. I fished their beat optimistically as the water was really low from the lack of rain but still took some small brownies on a dry. The river and setting is beautiful and I bet the fishing would have been great if the river had been at normal level.

By way of a catch return, I managed 5 trout, the best going just over a pound. The fishing was a bit tough with some fish taking tiny flies in the day time (caenis?) and a reasonable rise in the evening, but trout difficult to tempt. I missed a couple on a sedge but couldn't get them to take my flies that easily. Still, very enjoyable.

40+ chub, 20+ trout to 1lb, 7 grayling to over 1lb.
We all blanked on the top beat, both the pair that fished in the am and those there in the PM. When the shadows lengthened a particularly tricky rise began - complex multiple species hatch and similarly complex rise forms. Managed too hook three fish at this stage, all came off. Two were risen to size 22 dries, and one to a size 8 Royal Wulff! (we were getting slightly deranged by the frustration at that stage). Three of us saw an absolutely monstrous brown halfway along the top beat... it was not too far from the hut on the far bank. Big enough to have been a salmon, but consistently head and tail rising to what looked to be sherry spinners. A truly awesome brown, dubbed the "beast of Gromain." The salmon fisher in the party was adamant it was not one - that it was certainly a brown. I sincerely hope he was right, and I'll be booking early next season to prove the point!
Thanks for a wonderful, if somewhat testing, day. Would be grateful if you could train the fish to ignore disgusting large flies next season.

We found in the main on this trip that all the canoeists were very mindful of us as soon as they saw us, when we were fishing. In fact it was nice to hear them call to each other when in a group of 2 or more, to be aware of fishermen ahead and to steer to the far side of the river whenever possible.

On some stretches that was not always possible with the low water conditions, and in the main they were very considerate in passing slowly and with as little disturbance as possible. In fact it was a pleasure to see the "professional" for want of a better word, canoeists, who were extremely mindful of our activities and did their utmost not to disturb the river any more than was absolutely necessary as they passed by, gliding most of the way when possible.

On this trip we only experienced real conflict with our activities by a couple of canoes paddled by school children in a group of about 6-10 canoes. These 2 were sadly lacking way behind the others and were not paying attention to their instructor/guide who steered all the others away from us to the far side of the river. These 2 canoes came right in under our rods, much to their instructors displeasure. Although the disturbance was avoidable, it did not affect us to much and the children looked very sheepish for what they had done, & when shouted at by their leader, they looked very embarrassed, although no apologies were given to us. As they were just children we accepted that this sort of thing will happen from time to time and just smiled at them.

We do appreciate that they have as much right on the river as we have and so did not complain in any way. In fact the only disturbance really caused to us was by these school parties who tended to be more excitable and noisy. That's the way children are and it was a pleasure to see them enjoying their day as much as we were. In fact we were only jealous that we did not get that sort of opportunity and activity when we were at school.

On another 2 occasions, canoeists were actually very helpful. Two separate sets were close by when I was playing a barbel, both of them stopped some way upstream whilst I played the fish, once the fish was landed, they approached & were interested in what I had caught. On both occasions one of the party got out of their canoes to take a photo of me and the fish, for which I was very grateful.

It was interesting that on both occasions they asked if I intended killing and eating the fish. When I explained that I only fished for pleasure, & that in my opinion it would be a crime to kill such magnificent creatures they were very obviously pleased with that reply and stayed to see me holding the fish in the water to allow recovery before releasing each fish so that it swam away successfully and unharmed. One young lady asked if she could touch the fish, and was pleasantly surprised at how smooth and clean it felt. I'm not sure what she expected, but she did say how beautiful she thought that it was. I could not agree more.

On another occasion, whilst walking up river with Terry,surveying the river for likely looking deeper runs, we asked an American couple( maybe Canadian I can never tell the difference) if they had passed over any deeper places. They replied that they had but much further upstream. As we were walking back to the car, the guy parked his canoe and called to us to show us where they had spotted a deeper run in the river that was not visible from the bank due to the river side growth. Terry caught many trout from there later that day. Real co-operation between us and them.

The only problems we had were unfortunately unavoidable due to the low water conditions, where the canoeists had to come closer than we would have liked but they had no choice. They did try to keep as far away as possible though. At one point it gave us some amusement and plenty of laughs. What was happening was, just upstream from us were some rapids which brought the canoes across the river from our side and into some bushes on the far side, despite their efforts to steer clear. They laughed as much as we did. Each time a set of canoes were seen to approach this rapid we waited for the fun to begin and were not disappointed on any occasion during that day.