Feedback & Reports

The conditions were more like summer than late winter/early spring. It was a truly fantastic day to be in the Usk valley. There was a variety of fly life around with at least 5 species of upwinged fly on the water (I even saw a couple of mayfly?), but no significant number of any species. The trout also failed to respond to them and I only saw 6 rises all day and these were all oncers. All covered but nothing raised.

Fishing the duo did pay off though and I took 2 fish on a goldhead HE of 1lb & 1 1/2lb from the pool above the A40 bridge.

Fishing towards the end of the day with a nymph in a fast glide in the middle of the rapids near the bottom of the beat I hooked what felt like a monster. It surged off powerfully and repeatedly, fighting deep and not showing itself. After 5 - 10 mins of making little impression on the fish and several hairy moments I was starting to get very excited, I'd still not seen the fish and I was even questioning whether it might be a salmon. However eventually I managed to steer it into slacker water near the shore and rather than the 5lb monster Usk brown I'd been anticipating there was a fish of about 1 1/2 foul hooked in it's back. A beautiful fish but something of an anticlimax.

Will definitely be back on the Usk soon.

First time fishing this beat. Warm and bright summer like day. Wasted too much time walking banks and enjoying the weather. Blanked but two solid pulls. One fish showing reported by coarse angler.

2 barbel caught on what proved to be a difficult day.

Three brown trout caught in deep slow flowing water using a gold headed nymph, all fish were released. No fish rose or fly hatched all day. The weather was more akin to June than March which made for a great day to be out fishing.

Our first visit to this beat. Many of the swims downstream from the weir look ideal for barbel, but we failed to catch any in what seemed ideal conditions. After fishing a number of swims, three good chub between us late on of around 4lb apiece saved a blank.

Caught several chub and 2 smallish barbel. Tried maggots but after I had introduced some pellets they were only interested in them. Unfortunately I only had a few pellets! A nice short length of the Wye with a few decent looking pegs.

River very clear, bright sun light all day, fished for pike in the morning lure and dead baiting. Water so clear deadbait was visible in 8ft of water. No luck with the pike so tried for chub and barbel in the afternoon, ended up taking 4 nice chub up to just under 5 pounds. These chub give such a good fight that 2 of them I thought I had hooked barbel, and that was on heavy ledger gear! All fish taken on h/pellet. Saw a mink on arrival by the car park, and 1 salmon showing a couple of times. Nice to meet and chat with the three salmon/trout anglers also on the beats. Whitney Court always a nice place to fish & round the season off on. Thanks Ian for all your help/efforts this season and will see you next season, thanks all at WUF booking offices and to Adam at MHC, and to Colin at Holme Lacy. Might sneak a bit of trout fly fishing in on one of the beats if I can get the painting & work done around the house!...any body like painting?

First time on this beat for us. It's definitey a beautiful place particularly at the bottom end looking down river - wonderful! From a fishing perspective there is clearly a lot of work been put in creating "permanent" swims but choice is still somewhat restricted with a fair proportion of the beat inacessible.
We managed 2 barbel & a chub between us and lost a couple of barbel. The best barbel went 8.10. We were also unfortunate to encounter a Welsh "gentleman" fishing on the far bank who clearly owned the entire river as he proceeded to tell us in a very rude and aggressive manner that we were not allowed to fish anywhere near him! We had no intention of doing so but his manner was disgusting!

Several Salmon seen whilst Pike fishing, and one fresh cock fish of around 11lb landed on a spinning lure.

Fished from 9.45am to 11.00am - no fish seen or caught.