Grayling On The Rise

After some recent heavy rain it was going to be a close call as to whether the planned fishing on the River Wye & River Irfon was going to be a bit of a struggle. Myself and fellow club member Nick had arranged to visit both these rivers on Saturday and after walking along both rivers on Friday evening I was hoping that some of the colour would drop out overnight.

When we met in the morning the Irfon was looking almost perfect but the Wye was still carrying quite a bit of colour but the level was was OK to enable some relatively safe wading on the gravel areas.

The plan was to fish the Irfon first then head to the Wye in the afternoon giving it a chance to improve a little...those plans went out the window when we spotted rising fish in one of the pools we were observing on the Wye, too much temptation to resist so we carefully waded in and began to pick off the rising fish one by one. It turned out to be quite a large pod of Grayling and on a big river like the Wye this could be in excess of a couple of hundred fish.

We later headed on to the River Irfon where the Grayling were also eager to feed of the surface and dry fly tactics were again taking many of the Grayling...Grffiths Gnat & Caddis patterns doing most of the damage.

Sunday afternoon I returned to the River Irfon but this time a fair bit further upstream and found the river in perfect autumn condition after a heavy frost overnight, Grayling were again willing to take flies off the top so I started with a size #18 Griffiths Gnat which had been very successful the day before but the Grayling were reluctant to take it so I switched to a caddis pattern tied by Nick and given to me the day before.

It seemed to make the difference with many decent sized Grayling finding it irresistible. It floated extremely well in the faster turbulent water and Grayling were taking it with some aggression.

A very successful weekend on rivers that a day before would have been almost impossible to fish.

Memorable End To The Season

I was itching to get back to some small stream fishing after a few weeks of flooded rivers and other commitments that keep me otherwise occupied. I had to visit Fishtec in Brecon early on Saturday morning and decided to fill the rest of the day indulging in my favourite passion.

I choose to target a small Usk tributary that I'd never fished before although I had previously walked along parts of it and spotted fish rising fish so anticipation was high. Conditions were absolutely perfect with plenty of water still in the river after the recent floods.

This river had everything I liked in small stream fishing...fast riffles, deep pools, plenty of cover and as I soon found out a good concentration of wild brown trout.

Nearly all of the likely looking places yielded some pristine wild brownies with some fish measuring up to 15". Moving up stream was slow due to the sheer amount of 'fishable' water and the willingness of the trout to take what I offered.

The trout were some of the prettiest I've had the pleasure to catch with many red spots and also bright red markings on the tip of the Adipose fin and the lower side of the Caudal fin.

After working my way through a few different fly combinations I settled on a duo method comprising of a #18 klinkhamer with a #16 tungsten bead head pheasant tail nymph below fished at depths between 12"-36" depending on the depth of water.

All this as well as a spot of Grayling fishing on the River Irfon and a short spell Salmon fishing on the River Wye (no hook ups unfortunately) made for a very memorable weekend.