Feedback & Reports

2 trout on weighted pheasant tail nymph. Beautiful morning with river level quite high but water crystal clear. Spooked several fish. Stunning spot.

2 Trout

Well, where do I even start. It is a fantastic beat to fish, but you absolutely need waders. I thought I could get away with just waterproof walking boots but the banks are steep and overgrown beyond imagination, meaning spooked fish and poor accessibility. The ONLY way up the beat is up through the stream, nipping onto the bank if and when you need. On top of this, there are no white posts to follow to the start of the beat, so make sure you take the path AWAY from the village and take the left hand fork when it splits in two. There are fallen trees and times when the path looks like its run out but keep pushing on until you get down closer to the river.

I spent all day climbing, crawling and sliding on my hands and knees to try and land a fish, and somehow in the end I managed to catch one. I did hook another one out of a nice deep pool by the bridge on a nymph but he wriggled himself free (sigh). Never the less, I threw on an Olive wooly bugger as a last resort to sniff out any territorial/ferociously hungry trout and managed to take a beautiful little 6 incher out of a deep pool who smashed the fly, day saved.

This beat is PROPER wild fishing. If you are not prepared to approach it like a military op in stealth on your hands and knees, with a few scratches in the brambles on the way, then go elsewhere.

All in all I will be back, with waders, and cannot wait to do so. Beautiful wild fishing and a point to prove to myself of catching more fish.

1 Trout

The beat may look rough and overgrown, however once you make your way down the steep banks there’s plenty of casting room. Plenty of trout in the river, but very low water made fishing difficult. Several fish hooked but none landed. I will visit again when there are better conditions.

A really wild beat. Loads of trees across the stream which look quite recent falls.
Water level was very low and fish easily spooked. Managed to Induce a few splashy takes but nothing that came to hand.

We approached this beat with some trepidation, having read the reports that suggested a combination of fishing and mountaineering skills would be required to succeed. The most difficult part was in fact the path down to the start of the beat, which is steep in places and has become very overgrown over the final 100 yards. A days work with saws and loppers could make access to the beat much easier. However, once we reached the stream a couple of 70 year olds were able to make progress upstream, and we were rewarded with a series of delightful pools, although casting a fly was always a challenge as virtually all then pools have trees overhanging at some point.

We worked our way to the mid point of the beat where two small side streams enter on the right bank. Not all the pools produced fish, but we did rise fish in a lot of the pools, and the final tally was five beautifully marked wild brown trout up to about 10 inches, although far more were missed. In the final pool, I rose and missed a much larger fish which looked to be at least a pound.

It had taken us about 3 hours to reach this point, so we decided to stop and find the road back to Erwood, which is possible by climbing out of the gorge at the point where the second side stream comes in.

This is a delightful beat, but is definitely challenging, particularly for us older anglers, but well worth the effort.

5 Trout

Having fished the first half of this beat last year, I was keen to return and cover the whole thing. A few more trees have fallen over the winter, but there is still plenty of fishable water.

The size, foliage and fallen trees mean most pools need to be approached on hands and knees but it's worth the effort as there genuinely are fish in every pool. There was a good mix of hatching insects and the trout weren't overly picky, variously taking cdc olives, yellow ptn, claret klinkhammer and a flashback black nymph. I think I had a rise to my fly in every pool and lost almost double the 9 that I caught.

The pool where the little tributary cascades into the brook just below the ruined water mill is wonderful - two aggressive rises in the foam produced the biggest fish of the day at 10" and 12".

After the water mill, I confess my knees and back were grumbling a bit so I only fished the pools that I could approach and cast to standing up, meaning I passed up the opportunity to fish a lot more promising water - I needed to conserve energy for the climb out!

A really great beat and a wonderful day out.

9 Trout

Well… amazing, a real adventure. A combination of fishing with scrambling/climbing thrown in! A true mountain stream. It was a bit difficult to find the start of the beat (no white marker posts that I could see), I ended up just guessing really. Also the map of the beat could do with a bit more info on it, because once you are in the gorge you really do lose your bearings and have no idea where you are. There were two foot bridges that were not shown on the map that would help to position yourself. Also there was no info on how long the beat is. I was sure that I had gone past the end of it, but on reflection I still think there was more to go.
It was just the kind of fishing I was after, very tight, some deep pools, cascading water, the odd slow bit… a real variety. The main problem was that there were lots and lots of fallen trees (many of them recent). It was chaos in some places, and pretty dangerous… but I still loved it! In a perfect world some of the fallen trees would be removed, but what a job that would be, near impossible because of the access.
Lots of fish too, all caught on nymphs of a Klinkhammer indicator. Some did come to the dry fly later, but were missed. Overcast with a bit of breeze (hence the need for a bit of weight with the nymphs).
This is a real star of the Wild Stream beats.

15 Trout

Hard work today, a lot more trees down than last year making some of the better pools difficult to fish. Plenty of fly life - only a few rises but managed to bring two fish to hand on an Adams and a further two by nymph (GRHE)

WUF - a suggestion for the beat map; it would be useful to show the two footbridges and the public footpaths as it’s not easy getting out of the canyon.

4 Trout

A lazy start today: arrived on water at 09:30 after a late wake-up and a chat with the missus on the old dog and bone. Getting away is why I go fishing.

Cold start. 11 degrees with cloud cover and rain showers forecast, brightening up later.

The beat is typical small Welsh stream. The first part was 1 or 2 offers in every likely pool (not all pools mind), with me covering each with a dry (para adams: I started at 18, but that was refused so pushed up to a 16 and then a 14, both of which worked well) and then giving the fast water at the head a plop with a gold bead GHRE.

I kept this up until I hit the first bridge - hey, guys, what a good idea on that stretch those bridges are, as I would hate to be down there after dark.... Apart from a forced break when 5 canyoners came splashing down towards me ( a middle aged chap and 4 teenagers). They had the decency to avoid the pool I was forced to rest (the water turned chocolate), but seem to have affected the next 3 or 4 pools that were devoid of any sign of life as a result of the fishes' domain being invaded by shocking blue neoprene clad bullocks. Then I dropped the nymph. It was taking too long. Not only that, but the flatter sections didn't really give the opportunity to use a weighted nymph anyway.

That run of small falls and pools near the ruined watermill is a right bloody challenge. I felt my age going up that... A big fat zero in terms of fish, but adrenaline and lactic acid right up there!

The flat bits reminded me of a Exemoor stream, but with fewer fish. I noticed that as I climbed the water got more skeletal and clearer. The fish got smaller and more skittish.

I finished at the top of the beat at 7:05pm... Totally exhausted. Looking back, the wading and fallen trees were part of the challenge, as they make it a wild stream and the fallen trees weren't the worst I've come across. But anyone not used to this type of fishing might be advised to go in a pair... Of course, I'll ignore my own advice. Because I'm an idiot.

The result? 10 (I think - it could have been 12) wbt mostly between 6" and 10", but the fish of the day was a perfect (and fat!) 12" I caught lower down on a 16 para adams. There were a few smaller fish too, taken in tails or up at the top of the beat, but they were all parr marked and I didn't count them. I had takes from the same number again. Some I missed and others got off the fly. Debarbed is a problem for energetic small fish...

This was my best day's fishing of the week so far. Thanks WUF.

10 Trout

After catching two fish on the dry fly in my first pool I thought it was going to be a real red letter day but from thereon it went quiet and I only ended up with one more fish, on the nymph. All sense of time disappeared down there - 7 lovely hours spent and I only got just past the first footbridge.

A short video of the highlights can be found here: https://youtu.be/CDH7f7p1msE

Such a special place

3 Trout