Feedback & Reports

No fish caught on either nymph or dry, the river was above normal winter level and turbid.

Freezing cold day with snow on bank and sheets of ice coming down river. Piking on deadbaits - not a run all day.

We had a great day paticularly myself. R caught 1 out of season trout 10" and 1 grayling. I had no sucsess with the fly rod iceing being the main problem and I gave up after 1.5 hrs. Turned to trotting and caught 1st gayling of 2.5lbs but had to manoeuvre this over 3mtrs of ice in front of me. Before going to lunch I entered the water still in my wadeing gear and cleared about 10mtrs of ice sending this on down the river. After lunch, first cast, another fish to 2.5lbs followed by 8 more. 10 fish in total, not bad considering the conditions (I will be back).

12 x grayling to 14", traditional grayling wets fished deep on sinking leader. Forecast promised plus one degree temperatures; what we got was minus one degree, which makes all the difference between rod rings icing and not icing! So trotting was impossible, but I did manage to take some with the fly rod which at least has bigger rings to clear the ice out of. You can work down a run with a constant length of line out spey casting, but once you catch a fish, you can't avoid it, you have to draw line in through the rings which is necessarily followed by wading ashore to de-ice.

Coffee in a nice warm kitchen at owners where major cooking operations were going on, followed by lots of snow to cause a delayed journey home...very Christmassy!

I hope you had a nice holiday.

Fished Abernant and caught 1 trout of 1 1/4 lb in very good condition and 1 grayling of 1 1/2 lb on trotting gear. Only fished for under 3 hours as it was so cold and rod rings just kept freezing up which made it very difficult to trott. It was -5 when I started and -3 when i finished. I will be back as soon as it gets above freezing.

River was in lovely condition but I could not seem to get amongst the grayling.

Two rods.... Minus 4-5 all day long. Frost layered upon frost on the tree branches. Deep fished nymphs all day. Not a sausage to either of us. beautiful beat.

Trotting single maggot, 14 x grayling to 19 inches. Nothing until 2 in the afternoon when I found a shoal, after which they took steadily until the sun went down and freezing rod rings stopped play.

The 19 inch fish was number 8 and gave a very good account of itself in a heavy current. Wonderful looking grayling - it had definite presence while it was kiting back and forth below me and contested every inch of line! Oddly enough, I had another 19 inch fish in a shoal from the same stance on the same beat 3 winters ago, fly fishing that time - I remember telling Seth about it. Usually I don't get anything from that spot, which is in any case a bit hazardous to get to, but those are my two best grayling..

Happy Christmas to everybody at the Foundation.

My first ever session on the stretch. Walked the whole length of the North bank, fishing all of the pikey looking slacks. Had 3 low doubles all to whole herring. Some very pikey looking swims on the south bank and can't wait to get back and give them a go.

An experimental kind of day, two rods out, one trotting and one heavy nymphing: 4 x grayling 15 - 16 inches, 1 x out of season brown trout 17 inches. The coldest day yet, minus 5 when we started, so the trotting rod in particular with its small rings was constantly freezing up. The fish came in the last hour before dark, shoaled up tight on the bottom in deep turbulent water and all to the trotting method - it just didn't seem possible to get down there with the fly rod, however much tungsten used. Note, another large Irfon brownie, again a hen in excellent condition - no sign of having spawned that I could see.

Very cold day with frost and snow on the banks. Fishing hard with only one small pike landed in the morning.