Feedback & Reports

1 Trout

Missed two fish the morning due to rusty river tactics :) the sun and heat put the fish down during the day. Couldn't fish the evening unfortunately as this is likely the best time.

River impassable 300 yds from lower access point - had to return. Better from the bridge upwards. Most of fish seen were sensibly in most inaccessible spots…

The beat was as beautiful as ever although the level seemed a little low. I think the recommendation for a 7-8ft rod in the beat description might need revising - I fished with a 6'6" 2wt and still found plenty of parts tight and never felt in danger of not being able to cast far enough.
There was a vast amount of fly life around from the time I started (10am) with upwings of all sizes and shades as well as some stonefly. I started with a very small olive CDC pattern which induced a rise from something very small but after 90mins I hadn't seen a single rise to the naturals so switched to nymphs. A lot of the beat is only shin-deep so I tried all colours and sizes through the odd deeper channel and pockets but only had a gentle pull on a black magic nymph. About 2/3 of the way along the beat around 2pm I finally saw a fish rising to a large, pale-coloured upwing so I switched leaders and went for one of Jonathan Barnes' soft hackle dry flys which immediately got a lovely 7" trout. Dries are so much more fun to fish so I kept the pattern on for the rest of the beat and covered the ankle-deep as well as the knee-seep sections. This resulted in perhaps 15-20 more splashy rises from very small fish even though they were not rising to anything else. Most didn't stay on but I had to unhook a couple of 3" tiddlers and one at 5". I only saw one more fish rising to naturals and, once I covered it, it turned out to be a really lovely, hard-fighting trout of about 11".

This is a thoroughly gorgeous beat and the river is obviously healthy - every stone is covered in caddis larvae and mayly nymphs. I may have seen an otter at distance sliding very quickly out onto the bank ahead of me about half-way up but I definitely saw a mink trotting around bold as brass and working the pools in the lower half of the beat, at one point it jumped onto a rock 5ft from me with a trout in its jaws and we stared at one another. It might be that which makes the trout population maybe feel a little more juvenile than when I used to fish it a few years ago. Aside from the one decent fish, everything I saw was quite small.

3 Trout

River very low, clear and the sun was very bright. Managed to hook a large BT on a weighted cadis pupa but unfortunately got snapped off.

Plenty of good size fish moving. I couldn’t fish the last pool as there was a small group fishing from the left bank.

Great day at Bugeilyn, small black flies on top done the trick missed loads but who cares .

8 Trout

1 Trout

No fish caught

Bright sunshine and low water made for tricky conditions and spooky fish in the day. Steady hatch of duns and the odd mayfly. Great evening rise but couldn’t match what they were feeding on. One nice fish of 1.5lb at the death on grey duster, others on PTN.

4 Trout