Feedback & Reports

Enjoyed my first visit to the Crai. It was never going to be easy on this hot blue day with an
east wind. The river was low and clear. Most of this beat is fairly skinny water with long shallow flats that would have been good for the dry fly had they been populated with rising trout, which they were not, though there was an abundance of fry or minnows. I did find some decent trout rising to a hatch early p.m. in the deepest pool on the beat, but they declined my offering. Lots of wildlife to compensate for the lack of fish with dippers, buzzards, kites and heron. Also a dead fox deposited in the river - to go with the dead sheep encountered by JB in the Llynfi Dulas last Monday!

Stream clearing down faster than anything else in either Usk or Wye catchments. Enjoyable few hours but quite challenging to target my casts given the very blustery conditions. All the same, 3 trout 8”-10” to dry fly.

3 Trout

1 Trout

2 Trout

River was low and gin clear. Had 3 small trout on Adams dry fly in the afternoon.

3 Trout

very low water. no fish seen.

Levels looked perfect. Saw no rushing fish tried various methods but no luck. Fished late afternoon and evening. A beautiful stretch of water but no fish.

Since I live locally and had contributed to a clearing party back in February, I thought it would be good to inspect our handiwork and spend a couple of hours on the beat. The day was perfect and the beat is truly a beautiful stretch of stream but, apart from some fingerling trout or parr, not fish was to be seen. However, the stream is eminently fishable, the water is pristine, so I am sure that as the weather continues to warm the Crai will come to life.

After helping to cut back the Crai stream earlier this spring I was keen to see how it fished, and casting access was much improved. The Crai valley was ignoring the warm temperatures around the UK and gave me a cold blast in my face as I pushed upstream. However, there were fish showing to a steady hatch and I did manage to rise a few to my winged olive pattern but I kept nothing on. Looking forward to a big weekend trip later in May when I hope things will warm up both literally and on the fishing front too :-)

First time fishing the beat. 1 trout on a Parra Adams. Had a quick session at 7am but there wasn't much activity so returned at 6pm. There was plenty of insect activity on the surface but not a lot of action. 5 trout raised but only managed to hook 1.

1 Trout