Feedback & Reports

Pleasant and mainly overcast with the river rising over the day from 0.50 to 0.55m on the Cilmery guage (so pushing through), but clear. Caught lots and lots of leaves but also mangaged to find eight grayling of 10-12", plus two OOS trout. Most fish taken on a Red Tag spider, others on a jig-hooked flashback PTN, and a Grayling Bug variant. Oh and one on a small HE emerger (there were a couple of rises but essentially no fly all day). A hard day's graft but autumn on the Irfon is so beautiful: it's just great to be there.

2 Trout, 8 Grayling

All fish caught on a team of 3 wet flies, most fish caught on a red tag fly. Most Grayling were around 10 inches but I did catch one 17" Grayling. The by-catch out of season trout were all around 10" long. The conditions were a bit tricky with quite fast water and lots of leaves on the water, meaning that I had to remove leaves from at least one fly every few casts. I stayed in the Seven Stars Inn in Aberedw which I cannot recommend, although the staff were friendly and the rooms clean and comfortable they are directly above the main bar so are incredibly noisy. In my case there was a 21st birthday party on the first night of my stay which lasted until 1 in the morning and the second night had a live band which may as well have been in my room and continued until after 01:30. Not great when you want an early start.

4 Trout, 8 Grayling

A couple of very coloured salmon seen at top of beat and in the tail of Glasfryn. Fished majority of the salmon pools and managed twice through a couple. One convincing pull. Grayling to 1.5lb all from Glasfryn in an hour in middle of day on tan klinkhammer and red tag.

9 Grayling

Nil caught.

No salmon seen. Nil caught.

Last attempt at a salmon for this season. Mainly fished the lower end of the beat. Conditions looked good and several salmon showed. Alas another blank. Roll on next season.

10 x grayling 8-14 inches, dry flies. These were wanted for DNA sample research (swabs taken and fish returned). It always seems to be harder when you have to catch a certain number. The water was right down at 0.21 on the gauge, the pools were like still lakes thickly covered in leaves and even the gutters hardly moving. A big wind was blowing as the weather front came over, dropping even more leaves on the water. Grayling generally reluctant to rise, but a very thinly dressed size 18 Grey Duster on 6X tippet was taken sometimes.

10 Grayling

After checking reports for this beat I arrived with Aphid patterns at the ready, size 18 light green F fly with a white wing. Sure enough I was straight into fish sipping off the surface. As the day progressed the numbers of Aphids on the water was so great the fish started smutting with the chances of them finding my imatation highly unlikely. I tried tempting them with a BWO but they were fixated with the little green flies. I decided to change over to French nymphing and enjoyed some fine sport at the heads of the larger pools and gutters. The fish were of a good average size with the best Grayling and Trout at 15".

6 Trout, 10 Grayling

Fished until about 4.30pm. Water the lowest ever experienced at CLG with only 0.23m on the Cilmery gauge. Pools pretty stagnant. A few olives around in the morning but little fly on the water all day, even with the considerable leaf fall that the wind brought down either side of midday. Quite a lot of sipping small fish but relatively few grayling tempted to the top. Had six trout the best of 12" and 14" and seven grayling, all but two of 8"-10", the others being 14" and a nice 16" one and half pounder. Fish taken on small hare's ear emergers, Grayling Steel Blue and a tiny greenfly pattern.
A word of warning to anyone wanting to park in the middle car park by the "Grandstand" part of the beat: there is an ongoing tree-felling operation with much work still to be done and the car park area is log-jammed, inaccessible and very muddy. Having driven down, it took some time to get out and park elsewhere! If you plan to fish the top half of the beat it will probably be wiser to park right at the top (ref the map) or by the house and then walk rather than drive down the track.

6 Trout, 7 Grayling

My first visit to this beat. Very low (Cilmery gauge 0.22) and fish understandably spooky. Quite windy for a change and a lot of leaves coming down. Grayling all 9"-11", 4 on dry and 6 on nymphs. Finished off with two trout, one respectable at 14" which gave me something to net. Look forward to fishing it again.

2 Trout, 10 Grayling