Feedback & Reports

First visit to the river. Water very low. Watertemp 16°C.
Fished from downstream riverbend to roadbridge.
No fish of any size seen fleeing or rising. Waded very careful. Overgrown with trees, hard to find any space to cast some distance with this clear low water. Tried small emergers #16 18. Upstream PT and Grey Goose nymph. #18 BWO. Not a single reaction. Light tippet 10/00mm. Don’t know where the twopounders must be hiding? Some Bwo’s hatching, saw a Danica dun. Not a good river in these conditions.

4 Trout

First look at this beat - mainly the section downstream of the bridge, where I found one decent pool, containing some large but uncooperative trout, and otherwise rather skinny water, at least in the present drought conditions. A fall of spinners towards evening brought some activity only from par. Like other beats this one is desperately in need of a flush out and a bit of a prune. The algae makes even the shallow wading treacherously slippery.

Blank all day - not a sign of the "finny tribe". There was too much water and the flow was too fast. They had all resorted to their favourite resting places. I couldn't find these. The small pools were also moving (too) fast.
Not possible to fish upstream from the bottom pool as there are a series of impassible sheep/goat wood fences (immovable as they have been jammed - intentionally (branches locked at the top) ??).

Good flow but clear. Good hatch and rises. My first time on dry fly (a couple of hours) - caught two 9 inches on para adams. Nice spot. Stayed at the Tanners' Arms - nice stay/food.
Called in to Fishtec just off the Brecon by-pass. Ceri kindly sorted out my rod problem - shop worth a visit.
Getting on and some waters round here a challenge re. access. They should send local SAS trainees to try these - a few might succeed!

2 Trout

Water extremely low which made things very challenging as very limited water movement. 1 nice trout caught and a number of other large ones disturbed including one of 3 to 4lb which I mistook for a salmon at first!

1 Trout

Nil

Lovely stretch of river but very few fish seen.

Fished two Crai beats today - Danycraig in the morning and Upper Crai after lunch. Both fished on 3WT with dry fly - Adams Para or Klinkhammer. I found the two beats quite different. Not much action below the bridge at Danycraig but hooked into 4 WBT above the bridge in slow pools. The 4 fish were between 10" and 14" but am I allowed to tell you about the one that got away? Bent my 3WT double and made several line stripping runs before it broke the line at the hook just as I was about to land it - it had to be 18"-20" fish and would have been a PB - shame. So Danycraig has some big fish in it. Upper Crai gave up 9 WBT and by contrast these were generally much smaller fish although included 3 or 4 at around 10". Very pleasant day fishing in a lovely valley. Either beat is a great half-day.

4 Trout

Fished this beat and had an hour in the Upper Crai beat. Both lovely stretches of river with plenty of fly life and rising fish; however, I feel most of the rising fish at the Upper Crai beat were salmon parr, of which I caught several. Did see lots of 8-10inch trout but could only tempt one.
Dannycraig beat appeared to have a smaller population of fish, but the ones seen were of a good average size; one was at least 2-3lb! Sadly only seen it as it bolted past my feet but a higher fish for such a stream. Again, a few fish rising, but with the river so clear they were easily spooked by my clumsy casting.
May have to return in search of that trout again.

1 Trout, 5 Other