Feedback & Reports

River low and clear, very sparse hatch, plenty of trees in the channel making life interesting. Occasional fish keeps you moving upstream in search of more........ just move carefully!!!! The fish spook and the rocks are slippery!

6 Trout

Just two fish caught (on small klinkhammers), but such a good day. A beautiful river, to which I will return!

2 Trout

Suprisingly big trout in here

3 Trout

A tough day on a beautiful beat. 2 of us leapfrogged our way up the valley fishing at very close querters in very clear water. As usual the Clettwr was extremely challenging throughout the bottom half, but it did give up some fish. Most fish taken on nymphs with a variety of improvised casting techniques used.

10 Trout

4 Trout

River looking good despite low levels. Certainly changed since my last visit. It’s nice to see a river left to do its own thing and see natural processes taking place. Yes, it’s makes for challenging progress let alone fishing but this makes the Clettwr a bit of a one off. Fished tenkara using a 3m rod, maybe could have done with something a little longer but managed ok. Simple stiff hackle kebari worked the best with a switch to a soft hackle jun kebari showing the fish wanted that too but had trouble connecting.
A lot of v small fish about, good for the future.
As is the diverse and complex habitat.

Stayed at the Rising Sun in Pandy as usual, nice central location and just a great place to stay.

12 Trout

If you ever watched the film Jurassic Park and were upset that they didn’t offer trout fishing trips there, then here’s your chance. A wild place with challenging fishing. Conditions were very tough – genuinely gin clear water, marble-smooth bedrock and little to hide your approach other than stealth and cunning. Camouflage wouldn’t be out of the question… Every pool, run, riffle and glide held fish, but most were spooked once you stepped within 20ft of them. Each little stretch differs from the previous, and each requires a considered plan of attack. I don’t want to take too much of the magic away, so won’t give a blow-by-blow account of the day; suffice to say that the fishing was excellent and the setting otherworldly. Not too many fish compared to previous days on other streams in the area, but each fish was a genuine achievement.

25 Trout

Late p.m. & evening. My first visit to the Clettwr. You'd normally have to go to the Amazon for this sort of experience. Water clear and plenty of it. 3 trout on goldhead nymphs completed an entertaining few hours.

3 Trout

I made my annual trip up the Clettwr gorge (while the family enjoyed the Hay festival) at the end of a damp and windy week. While there was some light rain in the late morning, it was largely dry and overcast with a little of the strong wind making its way to the bottom of the valley as a gentle downstream breeze.
The approach seems more overgrown than last year and fallen trees meant that I ended up sliding down into the stream bed itself perhaps 80m before the start of the beat and walking up from there. There are a few more fallen trees in the lower half of the beat - a particularly big fall is starting to block the flow pretty much due North of Crickadarn. There is a lot of detritus being held by the handful of trunks across the stream and, although it can still flow through a decent gap on the left, another winter or two might see that close up.
Aside from that, the beat continues to have a large number of excellent pools that require a bit of a hands and knees approach but still give decent room to swing a rod. The lower part of the gorge is easier to fish that the upper half which opens out with pasture on either side and trees growing lower down so many more branches getting in the way.

The fishing was as good as ever - plenty of trout in most of the pools prone to a couple of acrobatic leaps immediately on the hook being set. I managed 11 to hand with about twice that being lost after a few seconds of head shaking. Both nymphs and dry flies worked well in dark colours with most fish being around 8" but one coming in at 10". The pool below the ruined water mill where a tiny tributary cascades in was a particular hotspot with some big looking fish moving on the surface however, despite half a dozen splashy rises and a couple of strong pulls on the nymph, I was unable to connect with any of them.

Another lovely day on a great beat, thanks WUF.

11 Trout

I could not get to the beat until 4pm which was too late in the day . Access was frustrating. The footpath is easy to identify, but no white posts to be seen. The obvious path going down towards the stream, continues for some hundreds of yards, but is then obstructed by fallen trees, and stops. There is a fork near the top of the path which takes you along the top of the wood for maybe 400 yards and eventually down to a bridge over the stream, where I then started. Some fly about, but no fish rising. An adventurous beat with so much fallen timber to circumnavigate. A wonderful gorge.

1 Trout