Feedback & Reports

3 Trout

Bright July dog days can be hard and unproductive but, with a favourable breeze, midge, lots of sedge and the odd up-wing showing, casting to at least some rising fish and knowing that others are likely to be looking up, makes a change from using bugs - though that worked too with a drab Duracel, either bugging or duo. In the morning, small HE emergers caught some trout and grayling, though the most successful pattern by far was Goran’s Sedge, as it often is at this time of year. But what really made the afternoon and early evening so memorable was that I luckily hit that day each July, when the ants of south and mid-Wales all seem to take to the wing together, and for a while the river is alive with rising fish. There were small black ants and big brown ones too and appropriately sized F flies or a spent ant did the rest. A fellow member of Gwent AS caught trout at the same time on the Usk at Gilwern. In submitting this report a day later, I can also report that I found the same ants (yesterday’s meal) in the stomach contents of rainbows caught just over the hill from the upper Wye, at Llyn Gwyn, on 31st July - not far as the ant flies! The synchrony of this remarkable annual natural phenomenon never ceases to amaze me. As for the trout and grayling, they were fish of up to 15” (~1.5lb) with far more than usual of the larger residents tempted by the annual feast. Back to tungsten next week?

12 Trout, 15 Grayling

3 Trout

4 Barbel

1 Barbel, 3 Chub

Didn’t have much luck

4 Trout

4 Barbel, 3 Chub

2 Trout