Busy Time Of Year

Well this is a crazy time of year for a fishing guide, but the weather has been quite good so things have been looking up, lots of clients and best of all loads of fish.

Also lots of people coming for casting lessons from complete novices to people coming to improve their skills, it’s been a very good year so far with everyone picking it up really quickly, or it must be the quality of the instruction !!

We have also had some amazing weather sun, wind, hot, cold and surprisingly not that much rain, bar for the one day the river rocketed up and coloured but it didn’t actually rain where we were, as we walked up the river the Carno brook was ragging and just above where it flows into the Severn was still clear and on its bones.

One gentle man had flown 11.500 miles to fulfil another item off his bucket list and catch a grayling in Wales, and he did rather well ( more to follow on this )

 

Low Clear Water

One super short outing fished one run before I was summoned home to sort child problems out, but it went well in a short slow clear run (lets hope it stays like that to )  seven grayling and two small trout, shame it all ended to soon.

At last

I went out quite early today around 8am, the river yesterday was chocolate brown but had dropped and cleared really quickly over night so all looked good, there was a gale force wind blowing down the river making bite detection a lot harder than normal so I most probably missed a few fish, but I did manage to catch two nice grayling one at 47cm and another of 44cm loads in the 35cm bracket and a shed load of trout.

Quick Hour.

Quick hour down the river, I must admit when I went out the house first thing this morning it was misty and really cold so I waited for the sun to come out before heading out, there was the odd fish rising but nothing dramatic so I thought I would try Trio, so on with a sliding stimi and two small bead head nymphs, the first area I tried was a slower, deeper bend in the river after a couple of cast and small trout had taken the point fly, then as I moved up the run around four feet something came up and smashed the stimi  another trout  I always find it quite funny when fish take such a large  dry fly when there is nothing bigger than a tiny gnat to be seen in the air or on the water, as I slowly moved up the pool fish kept coming and now the grayling had woken up, by the time I had fished around twenty yards up the run I think I had caught around eight grayling and three trout.

That Time Of Year Again

Well it’s that time of year again, time to start chasing the ladies without getting in trouble with you other half, I’ve been out  a few times this week for a fish on my own and the rivers are fishing very well indeed with good numbers of grayling and a few out of season brown trout being caught, lets hope the weather plays the game this winter and the rivers stay fishable.

So please get in touch if you want any help with finding that grayling of a life time.

At Long Last !!

Well at long last I managed a day of fishing for myself, as I  have seen quite a lot of my local rivers I thought I would go  further a field so off I went to have a look at the upper Wye, the river was looking lovely but with little surface activity, so French leader on with three 3mm bead head nymphs, the run I fished had quite a lot of overhanging trees so a little caution was required to my surprise third cast a small trout,  a handful more casts a rather nice trout but not what I wanted to catch, then another and another I was starting to get a little disheartened with all the trout, if it had been the middle of the trout season it would of been fantastic, so I kept plugging away and finally a small grayling taking the middle dropper a olive nymph,  as I moved down the run a little further the braid indicator paused and yes I had something a little larger on and it’s a grayling in the fast water it gave a good account of it’s self which was brilliant for me after seeing so many clients playing and landing fish it was my turn for the heart rate to increase.

As the day went on I had a good mix of trout and grayling, the grayling weren’t the largest fish I’ve seen but in lovely condition and not bad for my first outing, the one surprise I did have was there was a lovely looking run under a overhanging tree as the nymphs swung under the branches the indicator stopped and all hell broke loose a huge browny going nuts, I thought I felt the hook pull but the fish was still on and then bang it had gone, I think the hook did pull then the point fly might of foul hooked him then he broke that fly off, lovey fish but out of season so I wouldn’t mind bumping into him next year.

Not Long Now

It’s been a very busy 2016 so not too much time for posting on my blog but things should start to get a little quieter as the weather alters, mind I really do hope we have a good winter this year not all the rain making the rivers un fishable ( fingers crossed for good river levels )

Lots of very nice people learning how to cast, river fishing techniques and generally learning how to enjoy the outdoors, loads of trout and grayling were caught and carefully released to fight another day, also amazing on many of the days the amount of wild life we saw, otters, kingfishers, buzzards, red kites and the amazing swimming squirrel that swam from one side of the river straight at us on the other bank, even making us move out of his way before he climbed up the bank and was on his way.

When I hve a spare few minutes I will put on my blog a few flies that have worked really well over the past few seasons.

 

Seeing Double

Oli came for a days fishing on the rivers of Wales, it was a bit of a deja vu moment as the week before I had Toby Oli’s identical twin fishing with me, also with Oli was his wife Joanie who had never picked up a fly rod, so the day started off going through the basics of casting while Oli fished on his own, which for the first part of the day wasn’t going to well, once Joanie started fishing I could give Oli some attention there was next to nothing moving on the surface so I thought my choice of nymph fishing was the way to go but watching Oli fish there wasn’t anything I could see he was really doing wrong, so I thought it was time for a change so we tried a dry caddis I wasn’t really 100% sure if it would work but they certainly didn’t want a nymph, three cast later a fish came up and smashed the caddis, then another and the grayling wanted to play as well, nothing really rising but the good old caddis never seems to fail.

Toby Oli’s Twin

 

Day Two

Day two with Toby and Gabe went well, a lot more fish caught and the fish caught were bigger to, again fish taking dries were few and far between but they really were getting there fill on nymphs.

Toby caught this lean browny but with a spade of a tail, he caught this fish in a lovely spot right underneath an over hanging tree, drifted the nymph in and bang straight away the fiish took the nymph as always it’s all about presentation.

The grayling were also loving the nymphs as well, I’m not sure how many fish came to the net as I lost count but another good day was had by all.

 

No Golden Gates !!

Toby and Gabe from San Francisco out on the river today, not quite the weather they are used to but not bad for Wales ( only a tiny bit of rain today )but the fishing was better than the weather with fish coming to both of them Toby was top rod with double figures to the net a quite a lot more long distance catch and release !

They are both back out tomorrow for another go so more to come.