Feedback & Reports

River looked great, fish were taking a combination of meat and pellets.

8 Barbel, 7 Chub

Saw some salmon, but none caught

4 Chub

Nothing caught

Another fantastic day on a beautiful beat that is well kept by the legend Colin.
We went to our usual swim in the hope that the river level didn't mean that it was pushing through too much. On first glance we thought we were going to have to rethink our game plan as the river was pushing through but we decided to give it an hour and see what happened.
First cast with a 2oz lead saw it bounce straight round into the nearest snag it could find whereas 3oz seemed to hold just fine. We then started to pick off barbel and chub regularly throughout the day.
A brilliant day made even better when Colin came to see us and have a good natter. Lots of kingfisher action with one sat on a tree opposite in full sun for at least 20mins.

21 Barbel, 25 Chub

The river was up about 4 or 5 feet making the fishing a little difficult. Lost a lot of tackle but ended up with ten barbel and three chub between two of us. An enjoyable day in testing conditions.

10 Barbel, 3 Chub

River in good shape after recent rain. Quite coloured but on balance that does give the angler much needed cover on small streams. Felt the conditions were excellent but very little fly life and precious few rising fish.
However, casting a dry to likely spots resulted in 12 wbt, 6 big 'uns and 6 little 'uns. Best was 13" and all plump well conditioned fish.
For me, two points of interest. I am a para Adams addict, so promised myself on the M4 I would not fish this pattern today and tried many long forgotten flies in my box. What I observed was that of the 6 flies I used (elk wing olive, grannom, f-fly, bwo, olive klinkhammer and iron blue dun) they all seemed to work equally well. All flies were 14's so maybe this was the trigger. But I increasingly think on small wild streams the residents are opportunistic and if it's in their feeding zone they'll have a go.
The other point was the laziness of the take of the bigger fish. I'm used to my fly being smashed most of the year. But every large fish I hooked today was done in a slow, leisurely manner. Then of course all hell broke loose!
Sorry this has been a bit of a ramble but far too often I fish at 100 mph doing the same thing as I did last time, and the time before and the time before that.......

12 Trout

6 fish caught

6 Trout

0 salmon caught. a few fish moved early in morning.

10Lb hen salmon on tube fly

1 Salmon

5 small brown trout. None bigger than 12 inches.

5 Trout