Feedback & Reports

We fished from 9.30 to 5.30. Plenty of small fish rising but extremely wary and selective. We tried everything but blanked. Beautiful day on the river however.

River level low. Ledger and free lined luncheon meat. Four eels up to a pound and a half taken. We saw kingfishers, woodpeckers, geese and ducks. More interestingly to anglers, a large salmon showed itself and created a considerable splash. Trout rising to fly and lots of small fish activity in the margins.
A lovely stretch and I look forward to returning when the water level is up a few feet.

4 Other

River still falling and a bright, very warm day. A lot of floating weed made bottom fishing difficult. Four anglers on the opposite bank caught only three barbel between them. OK, there's the excuses, but basically I failed to master the prevailing conditions! In addition to the one barbel caught, I lost two, one owing to a severed hooklink, the other due to incompetence. Not my best day.

1 Barbel

Not having fished for several weeks in the Wye and Usk catchments and looking for cooler water (Lower Usk 19 degrees and WUF Llanstephan 18 degrees), I decided to fish an afternoon and evening session on the upper Wye below Llanwrtwl. Though pretty low with zero inches on the Ddoll Farm gauge, but not too far from the Elan confluence and so at present benefiting from 0.39m of Elan compensation water, the river there was only 14 degrees. There were some midge around, and plenty of sedges as the afternoon wore on, but no upwings, and none nor any spinners in the evening either. As it turned out, the evening was not very productive and it even rained a bit – yippee, bring it on! I decided not to plumb the depths but instead roamed around and fished two sedge patterns, a buggy-looking HE CDC sedge and a grizzle EH caddis, which produced from the off. I had fish on both. A few of the grayling were rising fish but most were not, and all of the grayling were found near foam lanes in the pacier water. Most grayling were between 12 and 16”, a couple of the latter chubby 1.75 pounders. Whilst, unfortunately, it looks as if today’s (30th July) rain will make little difference to water levels, the cooler Upper Wye does seem to be worth a dibble!

3 Trout, 11 Grayling

Just a few hours starting at bottom of beat. Water a little low and hot sunny day made it tricky, very spooky fish and tricky casting with lots of obstacles and high banks. Lovely spot though!

2 Trout

Nothing caught.

First time on the lower wye, 2nd time on the wye. I think the river might have been a bit low. Fished from 5am to 8pm. Contrary to common opinions about early mornings and evenings, all the barbel were caught between 11.20am and 1.40pm, which is also when the canoe traffic had built up. Between 2pm and 4pm the canoes just got too heavy to make fishing practical so i gave up and watched the chaos. Had to get in and help a capsizee at one point. The last fish was a chub at 7.15pm. No further bites. Lovely spot to fish. I think it might have been better with a bit more water and less canoes ie not during school holidays. Mind you, the fish don't seem to be too bothered by them. The barbel weren't huge, ranging from 3 to 7 pounds. I would definitely return to this swim. I thought it was well worth the money to have 300 yards of the river to myself.
The the only bites i got were about 2 thirds of the way out, just on the closest edge of the fast current. Didn't have any bites from within the pool itself. I only fished the bottom pool.

5 Barbel, 1 Chub

4 Chub

3 lb seatrout caught on teal and silver size 10 fly,from the baskets pool

1 Sea Trout