Feedback & Reports

Pleasant and mainly overcast with the river rising over the day from 0.50 to 0.55m on the Cilmery guage (so pushing through), but clear. Caught lots and lots of leaves but also mangaged to find eight grayling of 10-12", plus two OOS trout. Most fish taken on a Red Tag spider, others on a jig-hooked flashback PTN, and a Grayling Bug variant. Oh and one on a small HE emerger (there were a couple of rises but essentially no fly all day). A hard day's graft but autumn on the Irfon is so beautiful: it's just great to be there.

2 Trout, 8 Grayling

Saw a fish rise early on so covered with nymph...on and off! Quiet then until I found some fish mid afternoon which rose to a dry Witch and Orange Otter - no fish we're freely rising or taking nymph but these flies brought some up as they often do. Missed more than I made contact with...very fast...but managed to catch up with some 8/9 inch grayling and a trout of similar size. Quite a few salmon moving in the pools and I saw an otter moving downstream!

1 Trout, 5 Grayling

4 stock trout all in excellent condition.

4 Trout

Arrived early morning. Perfect fishing conditions. Not fished this area before. Found the water to be very snaggy. We moved 3 swims throughout the day but couldn't manage to catch a fish. 3 rods blanked. Very disappointed. Anybody fishing this stretch will need lots of feeders etc.and be very careful of the steep banks.

WUF well organised, fishery well run, well maintained. Gorgeous setting, conditions looked near perfect. However, after what we thought was a tough day on Wed. at
Fownhope, although we did locate some fish, this was a complete disaster! Three rods, at least 9, possibly 10
swims tried, not only no fish, not even a touch!!! This was due to the fact that it was almost impossible to present a bait without hitting a snag. Every second cast resulting in a lost hook length or feeder or both. I certainly don't consider myself the No.1 angler in the country but at 64yrs old I am no novice neither are my 2 fellow anglers. Very frustrating, very disappointing and unless someone can tell me the "secret" of avoiding those snags I would never fish here again.

The fishing was difficult in the swim we fished. Plenty of leaves coming down made holding bottom difficult. In the end 150g feeders did the trick. Largest chub was 4lbs 10oz and barbel 7lbs 14oz.

1 Barbel, 2 Chub

We fished Monday to Thursday & caught nine barbel, ten chub, one grayling, one sea trout & a brown trout, all float fishing. I was disappointed with the condition of the bank at this venue. The vast majority of the swims were overgrown, making access to the fishing difficult. We were not allowed to start fishing until one hour after sunrise, to allow shooting. Notice of this was given only two weeks before our arrival & after we had booked accommodation & fishing. Shooting only occurred on Wednesday & started at ten am.

3 Barbel

Arrived 7 am grey misty morning which progressed into light rain all day started at the top of the run and had an 8" brownie with my first cast on a tungsten bug followed by 4 grayling of the same size. Moved down river and had a solid take which I thought was a large trout. It was a double hook up with a large grayling of 17" and another 8" grayling my first double hook up and my largest grayling approx 2lb - happy days. Also had my smallest at a tiny 2". Could have switched to drys as there were plenty of rises but kept busy with the bugs can't wait to return.

1 Trout, 13 Grayling

21 x grayling 6-16 inches, 13 x out of season trout 6-14 inches. Trotting on high water (20 inches Llanstephan). It was in fact a quiet afternoon until getting on for dusk when grayling in a fast glide started to feed hard.
Most of the by-catch trout looked thin, and that seems to be the case with many upper Wye and Irfon trout at the moment. I guess they didn't have a very good year; will some skip spawning?
Otherwise, there were salmon moving all over the beat, and already on the gravel flats where spawning will take place. One bronzed fish in the high teens horsing about seemed determined to jump into my arms. The Irfon is the same, one or two in every hole. Funny how evident salmon are once their season is over.

21 Grayling