Oliver Burch's Trout and Grayling Monthly Report - April 2021

There was a short-lived heatwave at the very end of March, with temperatures well into the twenties. I think this peak was a British record for the early spring month, although it did not last very long. More on that below. On the 30th March, Ricky Reno caught a 19.5 pounds salmon on spinner from the Wye’s Clifford beat. This continued the 2021 salmon theme of “lovely fish, but not many of them.” One imagines we started the season on March 3rd with the river very lightly stocked up to about the Welsh border. RJ from Gloucester had a 36 inch salmon on fly from Carrots on the following day. I think we totted up a total of 16 salmon for March, the best of them a 25 pounder from Upper Bigsweir – a lean start to the season.

Meanwhile AB from Usk had 5 trout from the Usk at Chainbridge, while AT of Weobley had a brace from the Lugg at Eyton, along with spotting a goshawk, a roe deer and a grass snake. Eyton on a quiet spring day is a lovely place and I dare say the first warmth of the year would have started the harmless snake moving. DJ from Halesowen was fishing the Arrow at Court of Noke. He didn’t manage any trout, but sent in a photograph of lampreys spawning on the gravel. Of the three British lamprey species, I assume these would have been river lampreys.  

I have to tell you we were a bit upset by the picture sent in by MH of Swansea on 1st April in which he attempted to demonstrate the correct procedure for photographing and releasing a small porbeagle shark taken on the Usk’s Green Bank. Surely we have given enough advice in the past about photographing and releasing fish for people to get this right? Agreed that “feisty little fella” is the approved kind of comment to be making, preferably in an Australian accent, and MH seems to have taken care to learn the international guide’s technique of balancing the rod across his shoulders while the photograph is taken. All that was just great. But look here, MH, how many times do we have to tell you, the head of the fish has to be held upstream during recovery, not down. Anyway, we hope it went back all right.

A few more anglers were able to get to work with their rods during the Easter holidays, despite the weather turning cold again. On 2nd April BP from Pembridge took 6 trout on the Golden Valley’s Dore at Chanstone Court. VD from Llanelli with two friends had 22 trout spinning the Aberystwyth AA water of the Rheidol in Central Wales. DO from Aber Village reported a large trout from the Upper Tower water of the Usk. Well done, but as always with specimens, an accurate measurement or weight would have been appreciated. The cold weather did not make for the easiest fishing, but a good number of anglers visited the Beacons reservoirs. AL from Treorchy fished at Llwyn On Reservoir for 8 trout, but complained of finding poachers on the bank when he arrived. We aren’t too much interested in their nationality or ethnicity, but as always with poachers it would be good to know what was done about it at the time? It’s going to be a busy year and I am sure we are going to hear more about poaching.

On the 3rd GC from Pontypridd had a good day on the Usk at Abercynrig. March browns were hatching and he managed 9 trout on March Brown spiders as well as dry flies. On the 4th SE (I think that must be Simon from the Foundation) fished below Llanellen, experienced a grannom hatch as well as March browns, and took 8 trout to 2 pounds. He was using a Klinkhammer-style Grannom Emerger pattern and a sort of dry March Brown made from the fur of his terrier. Shades of the famous “Dogsbody” fly invented by Harry Powell for the Usk a century ago!

On the evening of the 6th I put my head out of the door to find steadily falling snow. The snow was gone by next morning, but the next few days were remarkably cold, more like February than April. About this time there was a proper flush of magnificent springers from the middle of the Wye in the Golden Mile and Carrots area, the best of them a 22 pounder for Jerrie Oddie. On the 8th MG from Cardiff took 4 rainbows from near the dam of the Usk Reservoir using a sinking line and slowly retrieved Booby. AT found nothing rising on the Lugg at Lyepole in the cold, but took 5 trout on a nymph/spider combination. On the 10th NJ from Llandysul fished the Breconshire fishery of the Usk for 9 trout on a “cold and windy morning.” On the same day JM from Cardiff was driven off Llyn Teifi by a snowstorm. JA from Leominster was out on the Arrow at Hergest Court and took 7 trout to 11 inches, but was inconvenienced by bank fencing work – which should be finished early in May. The following day NS from Martley took 6 trout to a pound from Lyepole and wondered whether the famous big grayling of this beat are still present. I think so, but I’m glad they weren’t apparent on this occasion because they should be busy with spawning at this time of the year.

12th April was the long-awaited border crossing date and everything suddenly became very busy as if somebody had fired a starting pistol. Including travelling, I worked 84 hours over the following seven days, mostly with anglers new to the sport. Everybody caught something, mainly on dry flies, and we were able to see some proper hatches of spring olives and grannom, even if they were short-lived around the middle of the day. Personally I seem to have missed out on the March browns this year, just seeing a few specimens. For the most part we used Stuart Jarvis’ Bastard Adams pattern for the olive feeders, and a little Hair Wing Sedge when the grannom were coming off. Waterhen Bloa, Hare’s Lug and Plover and Dark Moorgame proved useful spiders when fishing under the surface.

VC from Ashford fished again on the 17th at Canal and Rivers Trust water of the Usk and had 5 trout to 1.75 pounds on dries during a mixed hatch. DB from Bristol was fishing Glan y Cafn with a friend on the 18th. They had a couple of trout, but were troubled by “so many people walking on the bank and throwing rocks into the water” which made for hard fishing. AB from Cullompton had a quieter time up at Abercynrig during a March brown hatch: “Beautiful fishing in stunning scenery.” DJ from Halesowen had complaints to make about the access at Ashford House when fishing the following day. I guess this depends how old you are, but I think I agree with him. Ashford House is a great fishery but I really do think the stiles should be fixed after all this time and there is a deep ditch which could usefully be bridged. If it was a club water, it would have been done years ago – the older members would have clamoured for it! (The day after submitting the report I was told the issues at Ashford House had been addressed - see below).

JD from London had 7 trout on nymphs at Lyepole on the 20th, but generally the fishing was becoming quite demanding in the dry bright weather. HJ from Bridgend did well at Abercynrig on the 21st, taking 10 trout mostly on dries during a large dark olive hatch in the fast water. Seth from the Foundation with a friend fished on Ashford House on the following day and they had a dozen trout between one and two pounds between them using nymphs and dries. There was about an hour-long hatch of large brook duns in the middle of the day. (This is the one which looks very like a March brown, but actually isn’t, although a March Brown pattern will usually work just fine). AT from Cobham with a friend had a 2 pounder in a bag of 5 taken at Abercynrig and DW from Hitchin had 8 from the Wye at Ty Newydd on the duo method.

About this time what AH Chaytor in his spring fishing called a “bitter, black east wind” came on to blow for several days. That is mainly an upstream wind on the Usk, but it was cold and strong enough to blow your hat off, and despite the sunlight the hatches were frequently supressed with rises few and far between. On the other hand, when the wind relented slightly there was often a steady trickle of olives and on these occasions some really excellent trout were rising. We were still mainly using dear old Stuart Jarvis’ Bastard Adams pattern in sizes 14 and 16 and it accounted for some good fish. Further downstream the grannom were still coming off when the gale and frosts permitted. I cannot remember such an extended spring grannom hatch. Others were fishing too. On one of the more difficult days I was sitting with a client on the bank at Dinas watching the pool from a distance and we saw a very large cormorant dive deep and come up with a 2 pound trout. It swallowed the whole thing eventually, although for 5 minutes you could see the outline of the live fish kicking in the bird’s gullet. Not a pretty sight. Our fish have a hard time of it between the goosanders and the cormorants, especially when the levels are low. Despite the devilish appearance of the cormorant with his hooked hack-saw bill, I don’t exactly blame the bird. Eating fish is what he was born to do. I blame ourselves for failing to control a predator to protect another species we love and appreciate in so many ways, including as an economic resource. Please don’t tell me about limited licences to shoot a restricted number of birds or contributions to yet another anglers’ survey to find out if they eat fish or not; these measures have proved to be quite inadequate. If pigeons can be on the general licence, so should cormorants be while inland.   

So we came to the end of the coldest April for a long while. I saw a frost on every morning but one and, writing this on 1st May, there is again a morning frost although the sun will chase it away. Late as the spring was for the most part and restricted as our movements were, I had a few memorable “match the hatch” experiences during last month. One was at our Forest pool on a day with a bitterly cold wind blowing intermittently up and down the lake. But every time the wind dropped and the surface became smooth, a series of explosive rises could be seen from fast moving shoals of quite newly stocked rainbows.

Now people tend to imagine that stocked fish are fixated only on trout pellets. That is not quite true. Even in a stew pond, fish get a few opportunities to learn what live food is. Just watch when a mayfly strays onto the surface of one of the rearing tanks and see how long it survives. On this day the cause of the excitement seemed to be a type of greyish black midge species, which was coming off in small numbers. I’m pretty certain this was the duck fly, Chironomus tentans, which can sometimes result in massive spring hatches, for example at Talybont Reservoir. However, on such a chilly day this hatch was a modest affair. Spring buzzer fishing is famous, but usually when fishing for chironomid feeding trout we are imitating some earlier phase of the insect’s life: Bloodworm for the larva, Superglue Buzzer for the pupa, or maybe Diawl Bach or Cruncher as the insects begin to emerge. This time not much was going on below the surface, but the fish definitely wanted the adults. A few years ago I acquired a recipe for a family of Dry Buzzer patterns which are all very easy to make and with enough colour variations to imitate any sort of adult midge. Like most imitations of different phases of the midge’s life, it looks quite simple and scruffy; however, I pass it on to you because it does work. I used the black one on this occasion and although it was not always easy to place it accurately in front of fast-moving fish just below the surface, I accounted for four rainbows before the hatch stopped and the fish went down. When taken, it was taken with great confidence. I must have copied this pattern from one of the magazines, but I am afraid that I forgot to note the originator, for which I apologise. I have found the olive, black and grey versions of it to be the most useful on the still waters I fish. Here it is:

Dry Buzzer (Black):

Hook: Kamasan B170 12 or 14, more often 14

Thread: Black 8/0

Rib: Fine silver wire

Body: Black seal’s fur

Head hackle: Short badger cock.

The same badger cock hackle is used for all the versions, but the remaining body and rib colour variations are as follows:

Grey: Natural grey seal’s fur / fine copper wire

Olive: Dark olive seal’s fur / fine gold wire

Claret: Claret seal’s fur / gold wire

Brown: Fiery brown seal’s fur / gold wire

Ginger: Ginger seal’s fur / gold wire

Orange: Orange seal’s fur / gold wire

After several disappointing years, 2021 was also a very good spring for the grannom sedge and the hatches went on for a long time. Even while salmon fishing in March I saw some good hatches on the lower Wye, with the adults mating and crawling all over bankside willow trunks before the famous upstream migration of females later in the day. I normally associate grannom with spring sunshine and the hatch is often dramatic but over quickly. On the Usk I sometimes try a team of Hare’s Lug and Plover spiders below the surface when the fish seem to be going crazy for the ascending pupae. The golden plover wing covert feather is exactly the right shade of mottled yellow to match the insects. However, more memorable this year was a slow-burning grannom hatch I found in progress when invited to Monnow Valley after a single unusually warm night. (This was the one untypical day of this spring, the warmest 24 hours during many weeks). I have become somewhat worried about the main Monnow lately; although it still yields some beautiful specimen trout on occasions, usually to the dry fly, I’m convinced that there should be more of the routine 10 and 11 inch fish to be expected in a healthy river. Where have the numbers of pretty yellow trout gone? As a result, you find yourself searching a few known hot spots, possibly for fish you have caught before. There was a particular fish in a particular place which I definitely caught three times last season. Much of the river seems comparatively barren compared to the numbers it bred 10 years ago.

Still, on a sunny morning at Monnow Valley it was a lovely sight looking down from the bank through the branches at a big lazy trout slowly winding up to the surface to take in an adult grannom every few seconds. The flies seemed to have trouble getting off the surface, so he was in no hurry. I like to encourage myself by reflecting that if you can see this much of a feeding fish on the Monnow, you have a more than 50% chance of securing him. (Whether true or not, the idea gives confidence). I had with me a 9 foot dry fly rod made up with a size 16 Baetis Duck’s Dun on the leader because I had been expecting olives. A couple of minutes to get into position below the fish and off to the side by a few yards and I tried him without changing the fly. He had it the second time over, a 17 inch trout which jumped a couple of times before coming to the net. I swear to God this was a fish which I had tried for over a couple of seasons, having missed the take several times and been broken off once by the willow roots. Who knows? It was at any rate in the same place.

Above the mill-house and recording studio, one of the old reliable hot-spots was now obscured by a tree which had fallen in during the winter. There seemed to be nothing moving around this area. But round the corner, again from above, I saw another large dark fish rising to grannom in the channel. Most of the hard work involved getting down the steep bank through freshly sprouting brambles and positioned in the river downstream ready for a cast up and across. I kept the Duck’s Dun on, tail and all, as it had worked before, and it was accepted at once by a cock fish of 16 inches. In fact I had an idea that this was not the fish I had seen originally, which had looked somewhat larger. Now the area was thoroughly disturbed. Never mind, I had a lovely brace already and flies were still hatching.

I went up to the top of the beat, which is quite a tramp through the fields, to be gratified by the sight of several smaller trout rising at grannom on a pool tail. These rises were an altogether more explosive affair, the kind we are more used to seeing, and perhaps as a result I missed several. I did get two more, however, fat trout of 10 and 13 inches which seemed to have got through the winter in good condition. Finally, at the very top of the beat I reached another known hotspot where I saw nothing rising. Still, I wasn’t going to miss prospecting my fly down the run after that long walk, and sure enough another really good trout came up and engulfed it. Nervous for some reason, I struck too soon and missed it. And that was it for the day; all activity stopped at one o’clock with the air temperature at a surprising 23 degrees. A lovely morning for early spring, I thought.

I did a lot of fly-tying during lock-down this winter. Well, didn’t we all; what else was there to do? While I was busy at the bench the other evening, I realised that I was getting to the end of the current jungle cock cape. Jungle cock eyes are an important resource for those who dress salmon and sea trout flies. It wasn’t that the old cape was completely finished; it was just that most of the useful sizes were used up. This happens with nearly all capes sooner or later. There were still plenty of the largest exclamation mark orange/black/white eyes left, enamelled giants big enough to make cheeks for 4 inch tubes, along with tiny ones you could add to a size 12 Diawl Bach if you wanted to. I would probably use up the small ones eventually. The remaining big ones could even be used to make some of those vintage patterns using four giant jungle cock eyes as wings. I am not sure I would ever getting round to fishing them. But those useful middle sized ones, the ones I need all the time to make cheeks for a size 8 double Bann Shrimp or a 1.25 inch Black and Yellow tube are just about done. Time for a new cape.

“Tied enough flies? Try building your own rod!” This from a Bloke Fly Rods advertisement in Fly Fishing and Fly Tying. What a good idea and what a clever advertisement! I’m quite tempted to start rod building again. Bloke can sell you everything from blanks and individual items to full kits.

There was a time when DIY rod building was quite the rage, mainly as a way of saving money. Back in the split cane era I built quite a few. I should make it clear that in my case there was never any question of actually shaving down and splitting cane before gluing strips together to make the hexagonal blank. That is very skilled work indeed, and something I could never aspire to. But in those days it was also possible to buy the manufactured blanks along with a kit to finish the rod. This involved fitting brass male and female ferrules to the blanks, gluing on and sanding the corks to make the handle to the lower blank, fitting the reel attachments, end cap etc, whipping on rod rings and finally applying lacquer and varnish.

If I remember rightly, I used to buy these kits from a firm called JB Walker – which is not to be confused with B James Rods which later became the modern Bruce and Walker company. There was another Walker involved, however, because the first two rods I built from these kits were the MK4 and the stepped up MK4, both on two piece blanks designed by the famous angler and writer Dick Walker. The first one was intended for carp and the second, heavier version, was capable of casting a dead bait for pike. I still have the stepped up variant, which I found to be a bit of a brute of a rod without much feel to it. But the MK4 carp rod was a tool to love: light, flexible and perfectly designed in every way for its intended purpose. It cast a variety of different weights with ease and delicacy and it was the design which in 1954 Richard Walker had used to capture Clarissa, at the time the record British carp of 44 pounds. I eventually caught a leather carp of just under 30 pounds with my one. I remember the corks of the handle curving in my hands and hearing a very slight creaking at moments of stress. I can understand those who claim a wooden rod gives you “feel” like no other material.  

However, first came an early disaster. I was playing a wild carp of about 4 pounds in one of my local ponds when the rod suddenly collapsed at the female brass ferrule. If the ferrule had actually broken, the top joint would have slid down the line until it bumped the fish on the nose. As it was, the carp seemed to be as shocked by the accident as I was; using just the handle and stiff lower joint like a truncheon I was able to bring it to the net without much more fuss. I quickly realised the fault was mine. When fitting the female ferrule to the lower section, it is necessary first to reduce the size of the wooden blank slightly and round off the 6 corners by sanding. There is an inherent danger to this, as the strength of cane lies in its outer skin. Then the ferrule is heated up to expand it slightly, glue is applied, and finally the hot ferrule is drifted carefully onto the blank with a rubber mallet and a wooden block. My mistake had been to fail to reduce the diameter of the blank enough and thus also to fail to drift the ferrule far enough into position. As a result, when the rod was assembled there was too large a gap between the two wooden sections, bridged only by a thin-walled brass tube – which duly buckled and collapsed under pressure. All ended well; JB Walker sent me another ferrule and this time I fitted it properly. Sad to tell, the rod was stolen from me a few years later. If you ever come across a cane rod with my name signed and the date 1973 under the varnish, it’s mine!