Day With Colin

I took Colin out for a day, he fishes chalk streams rather than free stone rivers, so to start with he found the bottom a little harder than the fine gravel chalk stream river beds, the main thing Colin wanted to learn was nymphing techniques.

So we started the day talking about the different styles of nymphing and all the various forms of bite detection, I must admit I could talk fishing all day long but it was time to put all the theory into practise, a quick demo and Colin was away and away to a good start he had a fish on within minutes which was also good as it was also on his brand new 10′ 3#, so my nymphing approach worked and rod christened, one strange thing as the trout season has finished they seemed to be very hungry and kept taking the grayling bugs.

The trout if in the middle of summer would have been fantastic but it was grayling we wanted, then the ladies started to play Colin was really pleased as the grayling he caught were a better stamp of fish to the rivers he usually fishes, by the end of the day I think Colin had caught around 10-12 fish ( Colin used his camera to take the pictures that’s why I’m holding the fish for him )

From Colin.

Thank you, a brilliant day and learnt so much about nymphing that I should be able to put into practice when I get back on the River.

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.

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.

 

Hard Day At The Office !!

Yet again the rain comes down to make my life harder and for the clients not such a nice time, Michael turned up and it was pouring down and by the look of the river gauge it had been raining most of the night, the river was dropping but the way the rain was coming down I didn’t think it was going to be dropping for very long, so we had a chat about what we were going to do and Michael said let’s go for it.

So I took him way up stream looking for clear water but we didn’t find any so deep and heavy sort of day it was going to be, it was very slow fishing to say the least but perseverance was the key and we kept plugging away and finally all the effort payed with a nice brown thrashing away in a fast flowing river, sadly all my fears were confirmed the river was on its way back up, we had a some lunch and moved on down stream to what usually is a slow moving run, but today it certainly wasn’t Michael fished the edge of the fast water and another three browns were hooked two small ones and another half decent one.

The fly of the day was something that I thought I would never use, it was given to me last year or even the year before and been sat in my box, so thank you KJ for the squirmy worm, I think in conditions like this it might be close to matching the hatch in a fast flowing very coloured river.

 

One Extreme To Another

Last week we had the river the lowest Natural Resources Wales charts have ever seen this week the graph looks like a map of the sea, up and down like a yoyo, hopefully it will calm down now for this weekends guiding.

More Firsts

Another day of first, I took Andrew out for his first ever days fly fishing, yet again the weather was a little mixed wind, rain, and rather cool as it was a southerly, I went through the usual the law in fishing, safety, rods, reels, lines, leaders, tippet, knots, then on to the basic casts, roll and over head, Andrew picked up the roll cast instantly and off both shoulders which was brilliant and making my day very simple, so on to the overhead  this took a little longer to get going but every thing fell into place.

After a break for lunch it was time for the fishing, the river had dropped dramatically from Sundays torrential rains it still had a slight tinge of colour but looking good, nothing was rising so on with a couple of nymphs quick demo and Andrew was off and running, within a handful of casts Andrew was into a fantastic grayling, unfortunately as he had never fly fished before he lowered the rod and pointed it straight at the fish and it was gone, never mind it was a good start to the day, Andrew missed a few more fish and then he had another good fish on, trying to explain how and what to do as calmly as I could ( when rather excited ) all went to plan and Andrew landed his first ever fly caught fish, a fantastic brown trout ( as you can tell from Andrew’s picture he was rather pleased ) As we carried on Andrew landed another two grayling and missed and lost several more fish but a great start to his fly fishing future.

Chattanooga Choo Choo

I have to be honest I never knew that Chattanooga was a place until today, well that’s until I meet Valerie and Michael from Chattanooga Tennessee in the USA, a lovely couple who only get out fishing a handful of times a year, it was a slight shame that there one day here in Wales wasn’t the best weather we have ever had, rain showers, blowing quite hard making casting a little hard at times and a lot chillier than they are used to back home.

We started off nymphing with Valerie having the first fish of the day with in a few minutes and another with in 5 minutes of that, which was good news to me as the weather over night had completely changed, which did make me think it could spoil the fun today, as I walked to see how Michael was getting on I could hear someone whistling, I thought it was someone who knew me, but it was Valerie with another much bigger fish, well done Valerie, when I got to Michael he hadn’t caught anything as yet, but as he got into some deeper water the fish started to come both trout and grayling, we had a spot of lunch and a warm up for the people from warmer climes.

After lunch there was a very brief sunny warmer spell where a few flies started to hatch and Valerie and Michael had a spell on the dries, not sure how many fish were caught somewhere between 8-10 between them and Michael had 2 fish break him, but a fantastic short spell of action, with in the next hour the wind turned towards the north and increased in force making the rises dry up and also fish taking anything sub surface so we called it a day a had a steady stroll back down the river.

What Vallerie & Michael Thought Of There Day.

Mike and I enjoyed our day fishing with you on the Severn.  Even with the low water, you were able to put us on the fish to make for a fun day.  Your obvious knowledge of the Severn, along with your warm personality, made the day a real pleasure.  Thanks so much for helping to make our holiday memorable!

Best wishes,

Vallerie Greer

What A Morning

Went out for a play this morning when I got to the river the frost is burning the top of my ears I thought I had made the wrong decision and I should have stayed in the warm, but after around 3 hours I had lost count of the grayling and surpassingly the amount of trout I had caught, the one thing I was really pleased about is all the water I fished had already been fished by other anglers making life a little harder, as I worked my way down the one run the line stopped and as I lifted I could really feel something heavy, a lovely big lump of a grayling which really made my morning.

Hard Work

A lovely sunny day on the rivers of Wales today, it was quite a tough days fishing as the fish weren’t where you think they would of been, so a lot of searching was the order of the day, I only fished 3 runs in total, in the first run and on the first cast bang a trout, which trashed my leader with all the jumping through the air, so mumbling to my self “keep calm as it looks like it’s going to be a good day*, I re tackled up and off to go again, I fished the whole run and not another touch that seemed really strange, so off to the next run and guess what again nothing,  this isn’t going to be as good of a  day as  I had first thought.

I walked back past the two runs I had fished and thought there has to be fish around there was  2 weeks a go and a lot of them, there has been several floods since then but the fish usually don’t move that far, it was around 2pm so should I go or stay, well I’m here and let just try one more run, I was so glad I did, a large over hanging tree with a deep run under it and bingo first cast a good grayling, second cast a 47cm grayling, then a couple of trout, as the deep water tailed off I picked up several more grayling around the 44-45cm range, the run now was around 18” deep and as I looked you could see a large rock underneath the water and what I would swear was a fish behind it, I flicked the bugs out and past the rock nothing, I increased my leader around six inches at a time trying to put the bugs straight into the fishes face on around the fifth attempt the line stopped and yes I was right it was a fish and a good grayling which gave me the best fight of the day in the shallow fast flowing water again around the 45 cm mark, but this fish was the best fish of the day as I has seen it, stalked it and also caught it, well chuffed

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Here We Go Again

Well more rain today and for a while this morning I thought I saw Noah walk past looking for some wood, it was raining quite a lot to say the least, the river has been fishable for around four days and not great fishing to say the least, when the dam stopped releasing water the water level dropped 5-800mm over night, then one day it coloured up after we had some snow, then more rain, well it is winter but I would prefer dry and cool weather.

Few fish from the last couple of days, nothing very big, but at least I was out there.