Feedback & Reports

From a consistent low level recently the river was rising from overnight rain on arrival and soon was up about a foot and carrying a heavy colour. The fly rod was swiftly put back in the car! As an alternative to the long drive home I persevered with trotting but with little confidence. Gauge only went up to about 0.7m, still in theory ok for trotting but I would say on a settled river, less so on the angry boiling broth witnessed today!

Weather and water conditions were perfect, but it lacked the fish activities. Hard to find the fish and we're surprised with the browns we caught. Not that we were catching them, but the condition they were in. It was as if it was spring time, perfect condition. Mild winter strikes again!!! Even with the lack of fish numbers it was still a pleasure to be back out on the river.

4 Trout, 3 Grayling

6 Grayling

River low and clear, air temperature -3 fishing was very slow but we expected this with 2 sharp frost.

3 Trout, 6 Grayling

9 x grayling 13-17 inches, 3 x out of season trout 6-14 inches. Rather colder today, although we did see the sun for a while which was cheering. I started off trotting as planned. However, whether it was due to very clear water or low level (0.458 on Cilmery gauge) or possibly amount of recent fishing, the grayling were shy of trotting gear so I changed to a more delicate Tenkara rod for the rest of the day. Nice average size of fish as we have grown to expect from the Irfon and no shotts at all today.

9 Grayling

Trotting maggot. Grayling to two pounds, plus a decent chub.

12 Grayling, 2 Chub

River very low and clear. Still managed to catch 8 graying with 6 decent ones. Packed in at 3ish, leak in the waders made up my mind to finish early.

8 Grayling

I was stitched up by the weather forecasters today. When I booked this trip the forecast was for cloud spreading down from the north and temperatures above freezing. When I arrived the car temp gauge was reading -6 without a cloud in the sky. I arrived about 9:30 and as I had never fished here before, I decided to walk the beat first in the hope that temperatures would rise during the day. I probably made it about halfway up the beat before returning to the car for sustenance. I made the trotting rod up anyway and headed back to the river, more in hope than anticipation. Starting about 11:30 just up from the church the line was still freezing in the rings and the river looked lifeless and the float failed to submerge. I carried on upstream looking for some pacier water which I found about 100 yards or so above the wier. After a few trots down, I managed to find a good line which took the float down through the turbulent water into the steadier water towards the far bank. The float went under and a strike was met with resistance which then started to thump back. Thinking this was going to be my only chance of the day I played the fish very, very carefully until a lovely looking Grayling came into view. Apologies to the game fishermen but I measure my fish by weight rather than length and this one tipped the scales at 1lb 10ozs. I carried on fishing this pool and caught 3 more Graying of a similar size and one tiddler about 8ozs. The trout then showed up and 3 were caught and released in the water before it then went quiet. With the sun dropping behind the hills I called it a day feeling rather chuffed that a very unpromising day yielded some satisfying large Grayling.

5 Grayling

Fine day on the river, levels were a bit lower than we would of liked. Long trotting accounted for 15 Grayling and 20 trout, ranging for 5" to 17".

20 Trout, 15 Grayling

Great day to be out, 8 grayling, 7 around the half pound mark and one decent fish. An otter working its upstream towards me totally oblivious to me until 10 feet away was a highlight, kingfishers, red kites, woodpecker...great day.

8 Grayling