Feedback & Reports

I have read much before about the considerable difficulty of just getting into the river here ( mostly below Ryhdywernen farm) but I did find an ok way in a bit just below the farm, heres the juice...
Right at the farm driveway entrance theres a large gated field, a fair way down there there's a small belt of trees/shrubbery next the the fencing and some of this fencing here isnt strung as tight as a bow as per usual so with a bit of pipe lagging that I carry on it one can get over ok ( Note,I do have fairly long legs!) and the bank there slopes down to the river ok and is not socked in like a hellish thorny jungle. Result.
Bovine livestock in the field seemed unbothered by my presence btw.
Wow, lovely and cool down there after all the heat in the field and the river bed looked just amazing, spotless , no damned teflon algae or brown slime at all,literally, even in the slow water . The Usk sandstone was almost glowing in the sunshine, this is how our freestone rivers SHOULD BE !!! Water was the proverbial Gin too.
A very impressive number indeed of bugs on the rocks and of all varieties ( some large ,almost fearsome looking stone clingers included, huge numbers of really tiny olive nymphs and some very large Ryach's too) and some of these well lit rocks sitting in the shallow water had large numbers of mature olive nymphs on them lounging around that I liked to think where just there sunbathing!
Wading was really great with felt and studs,hard work yes but didnt slip/slide once,really, even on the slab bedrock.
I havent experienced anything quite like all this since I can remember when.
I was surprised at the number of long ,and slow sometimes ,knee-ish deep runs/pools from where I got in back up to the farm . Maybe a dozen?
I was expecting much more there in the way of gutters/pocket water.
Fish showing in all of them ( nothing big mind and I am pretty sure where all trout )and much more so too as the evening developed but man these guys here are just too fast for this old duffer! Rose quite a lot and I really do need to sharpen the reactions up and get the synapses firing better !
They did seem quite picky on the fly size/pattern though which I thought a bit unusual for this kind of stream . Maybe its because of all the fly life they have to go at at times? Who knows.
All in all and personally speaking I found it just fabulous and huge fun and cant wait to get back and even more so now there's lots of pesky branches gone ,just waiting now for the next angler along it and the pruners need sharpening now for sure. Every pool had something dangling over it to be dealt with so you could cast up ok and there's another good/lame excuse for the nil score sheet I reckon and who cares anyway when its all like this.
Oh , and yes, lots of Daubentons bats on the wing too in the failing light. Another good sign?

Pitched the van at Ryhdywernen camp site about halfway along the beat ( really great camp site btw , right next to the river too with lovely river music at night/morning too !) in the evening and had a quick skip up the river from there for a look see.
Fairly skinny water mostly but some small pools here and there and these had a decent number of fish in them sipping at spinners.
Had a quick go at a few but I wasnt really in the groove yet for these turbocharged risers.
Great to see and access up there pretty good mostly I thought.
Impressive numbers of bugs in the rocks, all the usual suspects and the water and within looked fab.

Lovely little wild stream - farm owners very friendly and pointed me in the right direction to get to the bank. Saw a few rises but no fish for me this time. Nice couple of hours on the river

First time fishing this river so I wasn't sure what to expect. I used an 8 footer but a 6/7 footer would've been better as it's mostly fishing in tight spots. The river was running low & clear and it looked like it needed a bit more water to bring some of the pools to life and add a bit of depth to the runs. Hardly any risers though it was morning and cooler than recent weeks. Not much in the way of fly life. The bits I could fish I had four and lost one. 3 were on a nymph including 2 x cracking 14" fish.
The ones I caught were all d/s of the farm where the access is much trickier.

An interesting session and glad I went down.

4 Trout

Easy access to two pools through the farm, but above and below that the usual problems of steep banks, barbed wire, and treacherous wading. One trout risen; none hooked.

Three fish caught on french leader. Reasonable hatch of olives and a handful of LDO's. No rising fish seen. Easier access above the farm than below.

3 Trout

An early morning visit to the Tarrell turned out to be a red letter day, fishing from 8am till 2pm off the back of rain the night before. The river was perfect, a beer colour and rushing through. The number of fish in this river is astonishing, almost every pool, slack and deep pocket produced multiple trout to Euro nymphing, some of them a good size, but most were quite small , 6 to 11 inches average. In gin clear, normal summer low flows you'd be forgiven for thinking the river is fishless, the trout here hide under the many bedrock ledges most of the time. The wading in a high flow is pretty brutal, so bring your studded boots!

40 Trout

1 Trout

First time fishing this beat.

There was heavy rain the previous night so there was a good amount of water in the stream with some colour.

I fished for about 2.5hrs using nymphs, catching 6 and loosing 2. The largest being around 11" and the rest being between 4-9".

Unfortunately around 3-4 of the best looking pools were covered with fallen trees so it was very difficult/impossible to get a fly to the desired spot (but I guess that it to be expected when fishing a wild stream).

I had great fun to fishing this challenging little stream

6 Trout

Saw one trout only and he was on a diet.