Few Hours With Tony

Few hours on the Wye with Tony sun is out with a bit of an up stream wind, but quite a lot of fish rising so it would be rude not to, couldn’t see anything on the water surface so tried with a good old sedge to start and the fish seemed to love it for around 4-5 fish and then they switched off but with still the odd fish coming up here and there, it seemed as if they had switched off to my fly so I changed to an olive emerger and a fish came up straight away and nailed it so I thought I was onto something, but no another 3-4 fish and they started to ignore it which seemed strange, so back on with a sedge but a slightly larger one and absolutely nothing at all but the fish still were rising on and off, I stopped and really studied the water surface but I couldn’t see anything, so as a last ditched effort I thought I would try a beetle pattern and bingo they really seemed to like it and take it very confidently with another 4 fish being caught, not a bad few hour on the Wye.

A Multi Cultural Week.

Well firstly it’s been a while but I have been very busy with one thing and another, but the guiding and casting instruction has been in full swing, the rivers of Wales are super low making the fishing a little harder than normal in May, it’s been quite interesting for me as no two days have been the same, one day good hatches and the next nothing.

But both the Wye and the Severn have fished well considering the low water conditions, the main tactics are long light leaders and being quite stealthy in our approach, nymphs worked well on the Wye and strangely considering there weren’t many rises for this time of year dries worked the best on the Severn.

Over the past week I have taken out gentlemen from America, Canada, Holland and Wales, very multi cultural and almost like the start of one of those old jokes,  a man from America, Canada, Holland and Wales walked into a pub !!

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.

Another lovely Day

Bill gave me a call asking if I could teach him nymphing techniques, Bill hadn’t fished with more that two flies before so we had to alter that, over the years I have developed a nymphing method that is super simple to pick up and usually always catches fish, so leader made three nymphs tied on and away we went with in ten minutes Bill had a small grayling, then another two grayling, things were looking as it might be a good day, as we moved down the run bill tossed the flies behind a over hanging bush and bang a cracker of a grayling but it came un buttoned, but as a consolation prize around ten casts latter a lovely out of season trout was leaping out of the water, Bill kept working his way down the run picking up fish and then the wind got up a little and the sun disappeared behind the clouds the temp dropped like a stone and the fish seemed to vanish so we decided to have some lunch and have a re think.

After lunch I took Bill further up stream to a shallower/faster run and a amazing run it was five large grayling hooked, few smaller ones and another cracking trout, the wind had dropped and the sun was back out the fish only seemed to switch on with the sunshine as soon as it clouded over then stopped feeding, so we tried one more run Bill caught a couple of quite small grayling and all went quiet so we called it a day, I asked Bill well how many fish have you caught today and in a good way he hadn’t got a clue as he had lost count.

Time To Start Looking For The ladies

Well the trout season is over for another year and now time to look forward to the grayling season ( providing the weather plays the game )

So if your looking for something as simple as a few flies to a half or full days grayling guiding on the rivers of Wales please feel free to get in touch.