Feedback & Reports

2 bites and 1 barbel of 6lb landed. Fished lucky stoned and first field after the woods with no joy, fished 2 other swims by the hut and had the bites. The first bite snagged up and unfortunately snapped the line. Great day out on a gorgeous and quiet beat.

1 Barbel

The river was pretty low/ clear and no fish were spotted or caught. The one large holding pool is where the fish must be shoaled up and is very difficult to fish with nymphs in low flows without spooking them.
Maybe this beat fishes best for the Grayling in the autumn when the Salmon are moving through.

blanked, difficult high river and weather

Fished downstream of footbridge at Newbiggin. Very difficult wading without a wading staff as lots of boulders

5 Chub, 1 Other

Always optimistic when I set out to fish, the weather forecast had given me even more cause to be so: the warmest day of the year so far, temperatures in mid-Wales expected to reach 15 or 16. Maybe they did somewhere in Wales, but not at Gromain. The sun did break through eventually, but it wasn’t very long before it started to sink behind the hills and left much of the valley in shadow. You can see where this is heading, and by the time I left at around 5:00 I had not seen or touched a fish all day. No sign of any fly life either. But who cares? It was a long time since I’d fished this beat and it was so lovely to be reminded of its subtle beauty. While I was searching the tail of the Heirag pool, a sudden chirrup alerted me to an otter on the other side of the pool. It seemed quite unafraid, looking at me inquisitively before diving down before popping up only a few feet away to get a better look. I saw another higher up the beat in the afternoon too. Frustrating, fishless days can be made truly memorable by moments like those. I must be sure to head back there in the spring.

Freelined and lightly legered meat did the trick once we located the fish. Fish ranged from 2-4 lbs. No indications of barbel. Hopefully they’ll be there as usual in June.

12 Chub

River extremely low and clear . Trotted maggot for 3 hours with just one bite and one fish to show for the effort

1 Grayling

Low clear water and sunny skies not conducive to good fishing but surprised not to have any offers again using tried and tested approaches.
Grayling very conspicuous by their absence in this part of the river at the moment.

Severely handicapped myself today by only bringing a French nymphing outfit on what turned out to be a low and clear river. All fish caught on a sz18 olive sow bug on the dropper, before 1pm, after which the sun was high and bright behind me. Grayling of 15" & 13", and a lean OOS brownie of 15".
The resident Dippers put on their usual show.

1 Trout, 2 Grayling