Fly Fishing Wales With Andrew Cartwright

Situated in the upper river Severn valley at Caersws. I have been fly fishing for about 30 years. I am passionate about trout and grayling fishing in the rivers of Wales, also the conservation and well-being of the rivers and lakes of Wales.

I would like to share my passion for angling by teaching both children and adults in all forms of fly casting, tying, game angling, spinning and bait casting. Fly fishing for over 30 years I have met some fascination people and learnt a lot from other anglers, my aim is to pass on as much of the information I have learnt to help get you catching or casting further.

I am….

• A licensed and qualified fly casting instructor.
• First Aider.
• Certified in child protection.
• A member of the Game Angling Instructors Association ( GAIA)
• A member of the Salmon & Trout Association.
• A member of the Grayling Society.
• A fly casting instructor and guide for the Wye & Usk Foundation.
• Guided for the Wild Trout Trust.
• You can find me listed in the directory of instructors at Fishtec the online fly fishing retailer.

I am also a committee member and bailiff for Caersws Angling Association.

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Misty Start

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After a cloudless and very hot day on the Welsh rivers yesterday, when I looked out the window it was quite misty and cool so I thought I would venture out and have a fish for a few hours, last week all the rivers had quite a lot of water in them now it has vanished, looking at the water as I wondered the banks not a lot was moving, so I thought I would fish in a French style and use small size 16 and 18 nymphs, the first run I decided to fish was shallow and quite fast, it was quite amazing four casts three fish, not that big but lovely fish, the fish seemed to be taking the fly very gentle, moving down the run what seemed a better fish, but it was a grayling and a trout on the same cast, it was amazing the fish were feeding flat out, as I slowly moved down the run it was fish after fish , some small and some not so small, but all the bites came very softly,  the only bite that I felt as it was very savage was the very small fish in one of the above pictures, keep feeding little one and grow up into a monster and please let me catch you then.

At Last Sunshine

David hadn’t tried fly fishing and after retiring it was on his to do list, so a good friend paid for a day to pick up the basics of fly casting, going through all the basics of gear, set up, knots, roll and over head casting, the roll cast took a little time to get to fall into place but one he realised that stopping the rod rather than putting power in made the cast work better it started to fall into place, when we moved onto over head casting David really came into his own just a few minor tweaks and his casting was very nice for a first timer.

To break the day up after lunch David had a little play with a dry fly and managed a few fish, but asked if he could go over the casting again so we had a re cap and called it a day.

10′ Orvis Access 4# Fly Rod

First day out with the new Access 10′ 4#, very well finished and for a mid priced rod very light at only 2 1/2 oz, it would have been nice if the weather had of played the game a little, but as we haven’t had a summer so far this year why should day be different, a very strong and cool easterly wind blowing up the river, as I thought bite detection would be hard I started with Duo, large ish sedge with a small black nymph and a PTN, working my way down the first run, with small waves pushing up the river things weren’t going to be easy, several false bites and then a lift of the rod and nice grayling started thrashing about, looking at how the rod was bending and playing the fish it seemed as the tip was a fraction softer than my Helios, not giving the fish any line and letting the rod do the work it performed very well, the grayling had taken the point fly which was on 2 lb tippet, so the rod had cushioned the light tippet well, carrying on down the run the rod roll casted into the strong wind perfectly, even better with a little jump and haul put into the cast, trying an over head cast into the strong wind with a 10′ rod isn’t always easy but yet again the rod did it with no effort at all, after a couple of windy hours and around eight fish the wind was getting stronger so I though it time to head home, Cant wait for some nicer weather to give it a proper try, I must admit if I was blind fold I would find it hard to tell the difference between the Access and the Helios.

 

What Orvis have to say about the rod.

2½ oz. 10′, 4-piece, Tip-Flex Fly Rod for 4-wt. line.
If line control is important to your style of fishing, then the 10-foot rod offers an extra foot of reach for precise nymphing or greater mending capability with dries. In highly technical waters where the fish are picky and presentations need to be precise and absolute, the Access 104-4 offers an incredibly lightweight rod built with our proprietary tapers and actions developed on Helios by our rod designers. This 10-foot rod is also a gret rod for float tubers and pontoon anglers, providing the extra length to keep the back cast up off the water. If you’re looking for a rod to give you that extra edge, the Access 104-4 offers incredible performance at an unheard of price. It is a specialty rod, but one that is proving more and more popular with anglers looking for that little something extra in presentation.

• Deep root beer color blank
• Matching root beer woven-graphite carbon and champagne anodized aluminum gold reel seat
• All chrome guides
• Sunburst wraps with gold tipping
• Gold ferrule alignment dots
• Super grade cork handles
• Safe Passage rust-colored rod tube with internal dividers

When Is The Weather Going To Settle !!

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Another strange day in Wales, yesterday lovely sunny skies and quite warm, today cloudy and really cool, you could see your breath in the air, I had a day booked by Hans, Robert and Dennis Greve from Denmark to come and fish some Welsh rivers, the way that they usually fished seemed a little different to what I do, floating lines and Hi D sink tips, after talking for a while it was because their rivers are very deep and the fish tend to stay deep in the pools.

Hans and Richard had fly fished before so they asked me to get Dennis going, so I spent some time showing him set up, how to read the water, basic casting ans a nice easy technique to get him going, when I left him to see how the others were doing, he seemed to know what he was doing, talking to Hans he had two brown trout and Richard  still hadn’t caught anything yet, but in the run he was fishing there were a few fish rising, looking around there were quite a few Yellow Sallies in the air, also LDO’s and gravel bed on the stones, swapping Richards set up over to a dry and showing how to fish it, half a dozen cast later and trout on, now that Richard  had caught a fish, back to see how Dennis was doing, nothing as yet was the answer, watching what he was doing, the main problem was he wasn’t reacting quickly enough, after telling to react quicker, one small fish on, then another then a tidy trout in around 15 minutes and then in the next half and hour another couple of nice fish, it was lovely to see things clicking and fish being caught.

As we all meet up at the end of the day quite a few fish had been caught and the novice fly angler wasn’t a novice any more.

Can The Day Get Better

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Out guiding all day with three lovely fellas from Belgium, to be met by Mr Interlink with some presents of Orvis to test, first impressions seem very good for their medium priced gear, hopefully if the weather plays the game give it a testing tomorrow, watch this space for a full report.

Wild Wales

Something you might find of interest.

http://www.wildfishingwales.com/archive/issue4/?utm_term=Wild+Fishing+Wales+E-Zine+-+View+the+fourth+issue#page-1

Few Hours On The Upper Wye

The weather has been very poor for a long time now, the weather forecast said that today was going to be the best day of the week so I thought I would have a little wonder to the upper Wye system, the river looked lovely still a rather cold wind blowing, but lovely to see the sun for a change, I thought it might spark some insect hatches, but it looked like the wind was holding them back a little on three rises in as many hours, so I fished with small nymphs on a long leader.

I only had a few hours spare so I fished quick and hard, thinking if they want what flies I’m putting through the runs they would grab hold, it was a better day than I thought with 4-5 nice trout , a few small ones and only one grayling, nearly all the fish came to a small caddis pattern and two to a small hares ear nymph, I’m really looking forward to things settling down and some fantastic dry fly sport, I think I have a while to wait yet though.

A Slow Start

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Been really busy with one thing and another, the weather has been really poor with the rivers up and down like a yoyo, so been fishing some upland mountain lakes for really wild brownies, on the odd occasion the river has been somewhere near, even if that was rather high with a bit of colour it was still nice to get out and have a fish the grayling even though they are out of season were taking dries very readily.

All I need know if for the weather to get better and settle down a bit.

What A Day

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I took Jeff out for a day on the river. When we first met, the weather was looking quite good.  First thing, there had been a hard frost, but it had melted quite quickly and the day was warming up, so it looked like we were going to have a nice day. When Jeff started fishing both grayling and trout came quickly to nymphs. Jeff lives in Colorado in the US and prefers to fish dry fly, so we thought we would give it a go. There were a few insects in the air but not a lot moving to them. As Jeff worked his way upstream it was a little slow, but then came up a little trout to a LDO imitation, then another, and by the time he had reached the top of the run he had caught around four on the dry, the cloud was building and it seemed to be getting colder.

We moved to another run and back to the nymphs, then our first shower of rain and a massive temp drop, but the fish were still feeding. Looking at the sky, it was getting darker and darker, not looking good I thought. Jeff said “whats that?”  I looked upstream and there was a large disturbance on the river’s surface, good heavens it was a waterspout! I have never seen one on the river before. When it came onto the shingle there was a large cracking sound and all the leaves shot up into the air !! Then we had our first thunder clap, I told Jeff to put the rod down for a few minutes, then the hail came down, churning the water surface up.  I must admit I thought that’s it, the fishing has had it, but after it stopped we carried on and  to my surprise the fish even kept coming, trout, grayling and then hail the size of large peas for another half an hour. We moved downstream and sheltered for a while, as the hailstorm stopped, the fish started rising all over the run so we went back to the dry, in around half an hour before we finished, another 3-4 fish were landed, great fishing, pants weather.

 

Proud as Punch

When I’m guiding I have amazing patience, when it comes to my own fishing not so good, when it comes to my little boy it sometimes gets worse, he has been fishing around 4-5 times and caught nothing, but is very keen to go, so I thought I would leave my rod at home and give him all my attention, the wind was very cold and blowing, so to make things easy I just put a dry grannom on for him, well he had three first in around 10 minutes, first fish he caught on his own, first fish on a dry fly and his first ever grayling, I was like a robin with his red breast all puffed up, proud as punch, then he missed another two, then bingo another small grayling, they might have been small, but will hopefully be the catalyst for the rest of his life.

Well done son keep it up.