Feedback & Reports

Had a superb day on this beat. The river was low and the weather was warm but overcast. Because of the depths of the pools on this beat the low flows do not make to much difference and if anything makes it easier to reach them harder runs at the back of the pools. Fished with an 8ft 3 weight for maximum fun. Caught most fish in the top 1 foot of water drifting home tied black and olive spiders which I was testing for a trip to the river Wharfe in September. Also had a few straight off the top on klinkerhammers. Wanted to pick up a few more bigger trout but the grayling were getting there first. All the grayling were around 10-15 inches and the few trout I had were a bit smaller. Most of the fish I caught were from Ash Tree pool which seems to be stacked with grayling. I must have fished that pool for about 4 hours straight and the bites and rises still hadn't dried up when I finally decided to get out and have a walk further down. Came back later that day and caught a few more before I went home. All in all another brilliant day here and I will be returning for some winter grayling in the new year.

4 Trout, 27 Grayling

This has to be the most beautiful river I have ever seen. The flow was very good, and wading a bit tricky, but of the entire beat, I think I only fished 400 yds. I started downstream of the caravan park. The day was overcast, with a little wind and very light spat of drizzle. I caught fish between 12 and 16 inches beside the browns that were around 7 or 8 inches. Browns were sitting at the tails of the main flow and the Grayling at the head just after the riffle. I have never caught Grayling before so I had such a treat. Hatches happening the whole day and I fished brown, dun and tan parachutes on 6x. Most of the fish took the dry but a few on HE nymph and black emerges. This river is worth travelling 10,000km for, no question.

2 Trout, 24 Grayling

What an amazing place to fish. I had a grayling close to 3lb, a personal best, klink and dink. This is a beautiful stretch of river with a very good head of fish. I also had a lovely brown trout of about 2lb on a tiny dry grey klinkhammer size 18. I fished as a guest of Shaun Watkins, who was kind enough to let me fish this superb stretch, which has a lovely caravan park within 5 minutes of the river.

5 Trout, 15 Grayling

It has been my first time fishing in a welsh river. Great place for the landscape around. The day was sunny. I fished from 11 AM to 4 PM predominantly dry fly. The water was veiled probably because of the rain the day before. I caught and released a brown trout with an imitation in CDC. I had some refuse. The next time will be better. Greetings to all the fishermen of Wales.

1 Trout

River clear and fast. Heavy rain in the afternoon and evening. 3 x BT to 16", 10 x Grayling to 13". Flies size 16 and 18 CDC Quill Size 16 JIG PTN. 2.8 Tungsten Bead

3 Trout, 10 Grayling

A Curate's Egg of a day. The good? 4 of the Trout I caught were 1lb plus; with the best two going all of 3lbs a piece. So surprised was I to catch fish of this stature that I contacted Oliver Burch to check if anyone was stocking the river - and was gratified to be assured that they were almost certainly wild fish.
The bad? Having to turn two teenage girls, armed with spinning rods, off the water. The girls came down from the Caravan Park, within 30 minutes of my arrival, and proceeded to chuck spinners into the Lower Craig Lyn Pool. I must admit, I felt a bit like Scrooge telling them that they could not fish. However, having dragged myself out of a warm bed at 5:00am, and driven the best part of 100 miles to be there, I was not going to allow my day to be spoiled by anyone going down river in front of me with spinning rods. Their father (at least I assume it was their father) came down shortly afterwards. He opened with the standard "I did not know it was private" gambit and then said that he had been told that he could fish by "the bloke who is always fishing here". He then went on to tell me about the nice trout (plural) that he had caught from the Lower Craig Lyn the night before. Neither upstream nymphing nor catch and release featured in his repertoire (ditto, I suspect, reference "the bloke who is always here"). As if that was bad enough, there were two other fly fishermen on the beat. I did not get close enough to either of them to establish their bona fides (or otherwise).
Other than that, not a bad day. Unless you fish rivers like the Test (when you will almost certainly be catching stocked fish), it is not every day that you catch a brace of 3lb browns. That said, I cannot help thinking I would have caught more were it not for the antics of the worm/spinning brigade and the other two anglers on the beat.

5 Trout, 2 Grayling

Tried fly & other stuff but didn't catch anything although saw lots of fish.

Fly, river conditions high.

6 Trout

Our first visit to Craig Lynn which we thoroughly enjoyed. We did find wading tricky, both of us getting a wetting - large rocks were difficult to negotiate although there were quite a few runs which had large gravels making wading much easier. River was clear with a good flow.
Fish were taken on both drys and nymphs with the nymph taken fish liking a moving target, several taken on the pull when recovering for the next cast. A lot of fly coming off in the late afternoon but no frantic rise - just the odd fish coming up.

10 Trout, 7 Grayling

8 brown trout to 11", 7 grayling to 14". Flies size 16 JIG PTN 2.8 and size 14. JIG PTN with 3.8 Tungsten Bead. Dry CDN Quill size 16 and 18

8 Trout, 7 Grayling