Feedback & Reports

Sporadic hatches of olives, mostly late morning to lunchtime, and just a few grannom about. Some egg-laying rusty spinners before lunch. Most fish came to nymphs in streamy water. A couple on olive F-flies and a solitary missed take to spiders. Fish not quite on the hatches yet.

10 Trout

My first visit to the Monnow, and what a lovely introduction it was. A brisk wind in the morning made it feel very cold, but sunny spells in the middle part of the day sent me rushing to strip off layers and enjoy the (relative) warmth.
The beat is moderately overgrown, but access isn't really a problem and there are few thorn bushes to tear waders. The odd overhanging branch makes casting tricky in places, but hugely satisfying when you get it right.
Good variety of water and an abundance of small eels were seen in the faster, shallow sections.
I started at 9.30 am, nothing was moving on the surface so I went for weighted nymphs, connecting with a lovely brownie of about 13" or 14" on a soft hackle PTN after some fast water on the lower half of the beat. Lost a couple on a weighted caddis pupa before bringing a little 6" brownie to hand.
A light hatch of olives began around 1.30pm which sent me rushing to change leaders. I saw a single trout rising, but in my haste to change fly and cover him I made a hash of the cast and scared him off. No more surface activity seen and no interest in various olive patterns or searching dries. Went back to nymphs with no joy until a strong wind and burst of rain at 4pm encouraged me to call it a day. Both trout released.

2 Trout

22 pounder(weighed in net)caught 0845hrs on a black/red Flying C.

1 Salmon

A rather cold day but dry at least.
Picked up on 10" trout on a nymph early in the day then fished for a few hours with out a sign. At about 1:30pm there was a brief spell of sun shine that stimulated a short hatch, the trout were rising immediately and I had one of about 14" on a March Brown, all to soon the hatch was over and the fishing tailed off.
An great day out on a lovely stretch of water.

2 Trout

I fished upstream nymph with gold head PTHEN and PTN but had no success, no fish caught or spotted, maybe to early in the year? Although I did see a few LDO hatching. The weather was seasonal with sunny intervals and scattered showers.The beat was very beautiful and well maintained and I could get a cast away on most pools.

River was in good condition, weather conditions made the fishing challenging. From midday onwards, during the warmer interludes, there were 2 or 3 sparse hatches which in turn induced the fish to briefly come to the top of the water.
Two of the fish listed above were small salmon parr.
Two of the trout were taken on small dry flies, the remainder of the fish were all taken on small gold head nymphs.

7 Trout, 7 Grayling, 2 Other

Tried this little stream for the first time - so small but lots of likely looking spots. Several fish spooked but none taken. Can see it might be tricky fishing once the vegetation has grown. No sign of a hatch.

Nil

2 x trout 10-11 inches on Rust Klinkhammer. A long walk to find rising fish in sun, wind, and even hail for a couple of minutes. Proper spring weather.

2 Trout

Started fishing at 11.50am. A very short (5 min, sharp and intense hatch of March Brown at 12.20pm but no fish rising to them as the downstream wind was blowing them straight off the river. Caught very nice fish of 2lb on dry March Brown fishing 'blind' just after the hatch had occurred. 2 further trout, each @ 1lb 4oz caught on dry olive around 1.30pm in fast water near top of beat. Things became quiet at 2pm so fished 2 nymphs across and downstream. Not much action with this technique but caught a 1lb trout on pheasant tail nymph. A colder day with sun and cloud and a persistent downstream breeze.

4 Trout