Feedback & Reports

18lb salmon on fly Beat4

First of 4 days on the Usk with my son. Unfortunately, he blanked today. I took 2 WBT, lost 4 with one managing to dislodge the hook by jumping out of the water like a cruise missile. Neither of us have a great deal of experience, so we put it down to that. This is an amazing fishery in a stunning location and we had a great day. Would have been nice to see a few more trout rising, but it was a bright sunny day, which was maybe the reason for that. Thank you WUF for making places like this possible.

One Trout of 1.75lbs. caught on a small black Klinkhammer.
Beautiful day, but fish not rising. Ollie caught this fish on his first outing with his new rod!(Christmas present)

Inspired by O.B. to give this a try and what a piece of water this is! Glides, pools and runs - all with decent water and fairly clear. Found fish all the way up but they were easy to spook - just how you want it. I had 3 - all 1/2lb to a gold head PTN in the morning and then switched to dry for the afternoon when some sedges and a few olives appeared. Total of a further 6 from 1/2lb to 3/4lb on a size 18 royal humpy. Tried to go to the top and arrived at a 2m weir - is that the end?

Only flaw on the day was that on my way back down I was thrown off the water just above the road bridge by the landowner who claimed that he had both banks amd they were private? Claims never to have heard of the passport scheme - perhaps someone could sort this out?

A fantastic days fishing nonetheless.

WUF NOTE: Due to an error in the Passport (which lead to the above incident) we have had to close the Upper Escley beat until further notice. Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused. We will reopen it again as soon as possible.

1 smallish brown trout caught on s16 baetis nymph, 1 bigger one lost on GRHE. Not that many flies about but several mayflies were seen in the early afternoon. Very picturesque stretch of river and a pleasant days fishing.

This was a second day on the same stretch of river. Stayed over night at the The Griffin Inn at Llysen. Very nice pub and good evening meal, also very good B&B. Started out by losing first 2 fish hooked. Went back to top part of the beat, this is much easer to fish. Things started to improve. 1 trout (brown) of 16 ounces taken, 4 grayling, one of at least 12 ounces, very hard fight.

Was very hopeful given that conditions appeared pretty good and fish were being taken on nearby beats. There's some pretty nice water here and I fished hard for nearly 12 hours. However all I had to show for it was 1 fat chub of pushing 5lb, a monster grayling (never had one of those on a streamer before) that must have been better than 2lb and several trout. Shouldn't complain as 2 of those fish would have been bona fide specimens in a different situation. No salmon touched or seen however unfortunately.

1 Brown Trout caught on klinkhammer. Returned.

The parking and access to this beat is easy going with just a short walk down through the woods.
Starting at the top of the beat there is deeper (3-4ft) even flowing water that’s ideal for spinning but not so easy with a 14ft double handed fly rod. You can get down the bank, but with coloured water I wasn‘t going to risk it, and getting up again may prove difficult. Here the Chub are a complete pain as they will savage anything, 3 inch tube flies included, (and I never thought I’d consider 2-4lb Chub “nuisance fish”), but the WBT sport would be terrific on lighter dry fly gear.. The islands, about half way, are a very attractive proposition, easy access for wading and again packed with Chub and WBT, two x 10inch of the latter took my 3” WILLIE GUNN Cascade Style as tied by Tony Frew, and a single handed rod would be adequate on this stretch.
Below the islands to the bottom of the beat, some hundreds of yards, is a classic quick water run varying from 18” to 30” in depth right across the river with odd rocks with deeper lies, each one holding a fish or two. Anything could be in each and, although I didn’t manage to net a Salmon, I had one heavy hit and another followed when retrieving to check for wind knots.
With a significant and continuous hatch of Mayfly and others on the water for most of the afternoon the WBT rising in this area were a distraction but very encouraging for the health and future of the river.

2 brown trout caught approx 8oz each and then 4 rainbows of about 1lb all of which came off before landing. Fish caught on bibio. No fish were taken.