Feedback & Reports

River was quite high and coloured barely a fish seen and none caught. Things improved when we made it to the Bell in the evening. I'm sure we just picked the wrong day and will try again soon.

Arrived after heavy rain the previous day/night to find the river a little up and carrying a touch of colour, the weather was now mild and mostly overcast and dry but the river was still freezing cold!
I had bought along a friend to introduce him to river trout fishing and wading as the river here offers very easy wading and has plenty of fish to go at so is a perfect venue for your first attempt.
We made our way to the very end of the beat with the intention of fishing our way back to the car and the Bell, shorty after we started fishing there was a short lived hatch of a fly I didn't recognise which rose just one fish, I find the far end of the beat rarely produces. The fishing was tough from here on with very sparse and sporadic hatchs not enough to bring the fish up. My friend did manage one trout in a pheasant tail nymph and managed to rise a fish to a Klinkhamer which came off shortly after, I had a grayling on a gold headed nymph.
A lovely day despite the tough fishing rounded off by a pint at the Bell to celebrate my fiends first wild brown trout.

1 Trout, 1 Grayling

A cold spring day, no rain, river quite high and fast running. Arrived about 11am initially double nympthing PTN and GRHE on point both size 16. After a quiet start I caught 1 x 10" WBT on GRHE. Early afternoon there was a good hatch of March Browns and I changed to dry fly March Brown and caught another similar size WBT. Unfortunately I lost a few (a bit rusty on the take). During the hatch I saw plenty of fish coming to the surface. An excellent beat.

2 Trout

5 Trout

Did not fish this day.

This turned out to be a beautiful spring day after an initial frosty start. River was a little low but running strong and clear. All fish were taken on nymphs from the faster waters with nothing showing on the surface. Managed nine wbt between 8" and 12" and three grayling, the best of which was a 13" hen found lurking behind a boulder. A very pleasing start to the season on a beautiful beat.

9 Trout, 3 Grayling

Fabulous weather.
Water in good nick about 0.6 at Skenfrith Level.
6 small WBT on nymphs.

6 Trout

Blank. A frosty morning gradually evolving into a foggy afternoon. Water unusually clear by the standards of the Monnow. Absolutely nothing touched or seen in a river which seemed strangely dead. One reason to be cheerful was the corpse of a spawned out hen kelt found near the bottom of the beat. It would be good to see a few more of those in the Monnow.

A very cold day, with frost still on the ground, but overcast and not clear like the last few previous days. The river was higher than I had seen it back at the end of September, but still not massively high (plenty of evidence of high floods a couple of weeks ago). It had a good strong and fast flow in places and was pretty much crystal clear.
Not much fish action, didn't see any but did hook one but it shook free before I could land it (on tungsten nymph, with Klinkhammer indicator). In retrospect I think I should have been fishing a bit deeper on the dropper. A enjoyable day none the less.

River higher and colder than earlier in the month. Nil return