Feedback & Reports

Despite having risen 30cm after Thursday’s rain the river was still low (0.8m on the Erwood gauge, dropping 5cm during the day). This gave good access to the pools but the flow at the bottom of the beat was a bit too slow to swing a salmon fly. There were hatches of sedges, olives and larger mayflies, and fish were rising to them. Four trout to 3/4lb but no salmon seen or caught.

4 Trout

Once again a blank. Fished about half the length of the beat, upstream from the bridge. Saw a couple of fish rising, but unable to connect, and plenty of life including a kingfisher. Later in the evening plenty of fish rising downstream of the bridge. The landlord of the pub, who has access to that area for himself and guests, says it is usually more productive for trout than upstream.

Very poor access

3 Trout

Water low, cool and clear. No salmon seen and very little trout activity .
Sparse hatch of Mays and Yellow Sally. Dense midge hatch at midday, most pleasing for swifts and martins.

Nothing at the top half of the beat to interest the trout fisherman, but the bottom half contains a couple of streamy runs and some flats that show promise. The wind was variable and occasionally strong, making upstream fishing tricky to impossible, and despite the sunshine it felt cool much of the day. A couple of trout were taken (one lost) and a salmon parr was taken, on upstream dry fly and New Zealand style PTN. A large chub on a silver invicta was a personal first and a surprise!

The field containing the beat is huge and we found the intended parking spot in the middle of the field impossible to find without further guidance!

1 Trout, 1 Chub

Fished the evening, caught three small fish and missed a few more

3 Trout

Slow start, but found rising fish from around 11:00. Wind made it tricky but some great sport in the end with a couple of 2 lb'ers included. Most fish caught on dries - some on nymphs fished just beneath the surface

8 Trout

3 Trout, 1 Grayling

We don’t usually come this far up the catchment this early in the year but as it has been an early spring we made an exception. We wondered how we were going to avoid the out of season grayling that were prolific at Gromain the previous week – but we need not have worried!
There were a few flies coming off all day – Yellow May Duns and Blue Winged Olives – but only a few fish rose, and none in the usual prolific bottom pool. We didn’t cross over to fish the upper part of the beat today, but still managed to get 5 trout up to 14” to our dry flies. All safely returned….

5 Trout

Went down to the beat with confidence, beginning an evening fish just as the water levels were beginning to drop after the recent rain. May flies were hatching so I matched the colour with a dry yellow evening dun, size 14 and cast about the glides and got lucky. Plucked a nice one pounder out from under a tree and then got into a bigger one a few minutes later. I wasn't quite sure how to play a big river fish, as he was holding his ground and treading water, a rods length away from the net. My inexperience with larger fish shone through as I attempted to land him and he came off. One or two swear words later I recast and caught another (potentially the same) fish and brought him, with caution to my waiting net. He must have been 1.5lb, which for me, is a river record. Went home chuffed. Cracking beat.

2 Trout