Feedback & Reports

8 x trout 8 - 17 inches; best fish 2 x 16 inches, 1 x 17 inches. A slow start on a very cold morning, 3 degrees when I got there from Swansea and a dusting of snow on the Beacon peaks overnight. River also very low, which makes some of the pools difficult. But olives hatching as it warmed up and a few hawthorns around; the odd fish prepared to come up to spiders during the morning and the Bridge pool is always good for a few. After lunch, though, a serious hatch of ? brought some nice wild fish steadily on the rise. I was going to type march browns there, but all this talk of correct identification and false march browns has made me lose confidence a bit. A specimen in alcohol is on its way by post to the Foundation and if it turns out to be large brook dun, you are going to have to forgive me! The main thing is the trout seemed to be really keen on them and a Deer's Hair Emerger with a prominent wing turned out to be the medicine of the day.

The day started of badly with one of our party forgetting his wading boots so while we started fishing he made the return journey back to Penarth for said boots (good start).
First fish second cast just below town bridge a superbly spotted brown of 1 1/4lb fell to a tungsten bead black nymph, thoughts of this might be a good day after all started.
Fish were rising to a small hatch of March browns and with this the second fish was hooked fought for a minute and then lost to a knot pulling through, better fish, fury over knot tying. Some people tuned up fishing worms which we did inform was illegal but ignored us and spoilt the pool. The rest of the day didn't turn out to that good with one other small brown taken late in the afternoon. Fished till late hoping for a rise to maybe start but with only a few sporadic rises hunger and the pub got the bettter of us and we called it a day.

There are some very big trout on this beat and would highly recommend it.

2 x trout 6 and 11 inches. Not as bad a day as it sounds - although the water was high and the wind was cold, in the afternoon temperature got up to 16 degrees and in sheltered corners there was a good hatch of large dark olives. In one of these I watched a gentleman from Sussex take 4 excellent trout around 15-16 inches, 3 of them on a dry Iron Blue, no less. Superb bit of angling and Harry Plunket Greene would have approved the pattern.

River too high for comfortable wading. Gusty wind. Sparse hatch of March Brown & olives around 2.00 p.m. No surface activity. One good fish hooked on March brown nymph [est 1 1/2 lb]. 2 other pulls, otherwise nothing to report. Other rod fishing had one pull. Water needs to warm up. Sight of March Browns encouraging-hope to see more of these in future. Normally fish near Abergavenny,haven,tseen many March Browns down there for many a season. Difficult day, but things can only get better. Certainly beats going round M&S with the wife!!

6 x trout 14-15 inches, spiders. As with other middle Usk beats at the moment, it's mainly about that short window of opportunity in the afternoon when a few large dark olives hatch off, before the cold winds come back to shut it down again by about 4 o'clock.