Feedback & Reports

My previous trip to this beat the river was high and coloured, this time it was just right.

The day started with some light rain, with rest of the day being cloudy, with little wind.

On arrival as it was raining I put on a nymph but four fish rising in quick succession, saw me change to the dry and after a couple of missed takes I had a nice plump fish in the net.

There were sporadic rises throughout the day, so I fished clink and dink. A couple more fish came to dry but I missed them, mainly because I just wasn't expecting it. The other two, including a lovely 15 inch fish, were taken on GHRE variant.

3 Trout

Beautiful warm day and light winds with still quite high water and a ting of colour. Wading trick as a result but 5 good fish with the largest at 14inches. All bar one on a PTN with the 5th rising to an emerger.

5 Trout

Impossible to fish as flooding

Timed one of my very rare trips to the Usk badly, the river was at .76m when I arrived and it was up and coloured.

Having traveled a long way I was reluctant to give up, so I decided to walk the beat to see if I could fish anywhere. My plan was to stay the whole day and hopefully the river might clear up enough.

First thing first this beat is almost totally inaccessible if the water is up and slightly coloured, the steep banks make it very difficult to test the water depth to make a safe entry.

I did however find a place to fish at the top of the beat, where the stream enters.

I tried nymphs of varying size, colour and weight to no avail. I even tried stripping some lures back through the water, which has brought me some success previously when the water was coloured.

Eventually around 3pm some fish began rising, I immediately switched to dry and managed to get 6 fish to rise. Sadly I didn't make contact with any of them. The action lasted about 30 minutes and after that I couldn't get a touch.

I will try this beat again when the conditions are more favourable.

Alas weather prevented us from fishing.

13 trout ranging from 3/4lb to 2lb, all but one on dry fly, mostly cdc emerger patterns. All fish were released and in great condition. There was a decent amount of surface activity throughout the day. A few grannom, some olive uprights, lots of black gnat and a few yellow mays were hatching.
While access to this fishery will always be a little challenging due to steep and willow-lined banks, the infrastructure improvements put in recently certainly help. It is always well worth a walk to the top of the beat where getting to the water is easier.

13 Trout

A lovely bit of water near Talybont on Usk. We arrived shortly before midday to find the river very quiet. By midday, a trickle of brook dun started coming off, which lasted all afternoon, allowing for non stop action up and down the beat until 4.30pm. Only two dry fly patterns were needed all day. We nearly lost count of the number of fish caught, but luckily the camera kept us honest. Two fish over 2.5lbs and most over 2lb. Make sure you've got strong nylon and good knots!

14 Trout

1 Trout

1 caught and released, several seen and got away. Olive hatch lasted a few hours in the afternoon. Dry fly

1 Trout