Feedback & Reports

Arrived at the fishery around 7am. Within five minutes of starting to fish the rain began followed quickly by a strengthening wind. The river was very shallow with only a few deeper areas to fish. Tried the full length of the beat using French leader techniques but without any success. I had intended to fish my way back to the car but by this time the rain and wind prevented any further fishing. Did I enjoy myself...yes. Did I get wet....yes. Will I return....definitely yes.

River was at good height and clarity but nothing to show for my efforts. No fish seen but the fly was swinging beautifully in all pools. The gusts didn't make it easy to cast a fly but it at kept the canoeists off the river.

Fished both the lower and middle beats in a day. The lower beat was overgrown all the way up, so fished a short line (sort of) Czech style to explore the nooks and crannies. Caught one small brownie, but tough going as low and clear.
The middle beat has a few more open spots, and took two fish, around 9" from the large pool in the middle of the beat and the one immediately below it. Where you can cast properly I caught. Lovely beat, although narrows considerably towards the top of the beat.
Flies were a tungsten head nymph with pink hotspot on the point and copper John on the dropper. 2 of the three took the point fly.

2 Trout

Fished the lower and middle beats together. Beat is fairly overgrown, so casting difficult, so reverted to short line / Czech style. Even with a short rod (7"6) still tricky. In summer likely to be impossible for large parts of the beat.
Took one small brownie to a tungsten head nymph on the point. Beat low and clear, didn't spot many fish.

1 Trout

River in good condition but still quite cold and pushing through strongly. Not helped by the gusty downstream wind, which kept all but a few hardy small sedges from hatching. Struggled to make any sort of contact on nymphs, but managed to save the day by taking a couple of 8-9" grayling from the pool just below the Clettwr Brook - amazingly on a dry!

2 Grayling

Lovely beat to look at but wind and rain stopped play.

1 Trout

We gave it a couple of hours before the 40 mph winds persuaded us to repair to a local hostelry. On the rare occasions our upstream nymphs landed in the right place they significantly failed to induce any detectable fishy action. Lovely bit of water on a balmy summer evening I suspect!

Heavy rain and river was quite full. Only fished for an hour. No fish but did see a few rises.

Not a day for fair weather fishermen, but the angler's obsession drove us to persevere through gale force winds and blanket rain. And what a return! Eight lovely fish between 12 and 18", mainly to a Copper John. An excellent beat, to which we will return !

8 Trout