Countdown (part 1)

Late January sees me getting busy with preparations for the season ahead, which this year has included investments in a new fly tying vice and a multitude of tying materials. Vague plans for the forthcoming season's fly construction requirements have been driving me insane with decisions on what to stock up on. However my plans are becoming less vague as I think about the onset of March. I'm about to embark on my second season of river trouting. Having learned a liitle about this noble art last season (many thanks to Frank Williams for getting me up & running last April) I wanted to build on these foundations. Step one, and the focus of my preparations during January, is to have stocks of flies ready for the different hatches and trout feeding habits throughout the season. For now this is dedicated to March & April which should mean Large Dark Olives (LDOs), Grannom, Midge and perhaps the elusive March Brown. These are the key insect species that most Usk fishermen will tell you to focus on at the start of the season and I'm not about to argue with their superior knowledge!!

Here are a few of my initial lash-ups starting with none of the above - plans gone awry already! The Usk Naylor is a bit of a mysetery to me. I don't know what it's supposed to imitate and I've never fished it before, but having read a few articles and been lured by its mystique I've tied a few to experiment with. I guess there's as much entemological reasoning to the success of this fly as there is to the Snipe & Purple (a classic pattern of northern origin). It just works....apparently. Here's my own Usk Naylor tied to the original recipe. I hope to write about my success using it in the near future.

Usk Naylor

Next is the Grannom, the hatches of which have brought the Usk a certain notoriety. The larvae of this species are "cased" and may not be accessible to trout, but the pupae, emergers and adults are most definitley of interest. I can speak with a small degree of authority here as I fished a Grannom hatch last April and the feeding activity was prolific. I've tied three patterns here to cover most of the key stages of the hatch.

1. An early pupa pattern - tied on a heavy buzzer hook, this is essentially a spider pattern but I wanted the buzzer curve to imitate the natural's wriggling-swimming motion after it has emerged from its case and started to make its way to the surface. I'll fish this at a variety of depths to coincide with pre-emerger activity of the hatch


Grannom Pupa



2. An emerger patter - this is a CDC shuttlecock pattern aimed at representing the emerging Grannom at a stage where it is most vulnerable to predation


Grannom Emerger



3. A newly emerged adult - a dry fly pattern kept afloat with CDC and Elk hair winging. I took fish on a very similar pattern during last year's Grannom hatch, but it also makes a great fly as part of a duo-rig and should carry a 2mm tungsten bead pattern on the point with relative ease.


Grannom Adult dry-fly



So that's part 1 of the "Countdown". A few more nights of tying should see enough material for a follow up post covering LDOs, midge and March Brown.

Master Angler

This made me smile....

Did anyone spot the "Master Angler" on the Wye & Usk web cams yesterday? This kingfisher was captured on the Brecon Usk web cam. Good to see that the Wye & Usk Foundation's river level gauges are helping British wildlife. Maybe he's auditioning for Springwatch!

Fenni Fach, River Usk - 31st July 2010

I'm starting to get the hang of this river fishing malarky and the bug has well and truly bitten me (as evidenced by the impact on my bank balance recently!!). Today saw 6 beautiful wild brownies to the net and a multitude of near misses. It was definitely a good day for being on the river!

The Fenni Fach beat on the Usk is one of my favourites so far. It stretches for 1.5 miles just upstream of Brecon and you can fully expect to meet absolutely nobody for the entire session - wonderfully secluded!! So far I've only explored the lower half of the beat which consists of a mixture of flat glides, deep pools, long riffles and lots of 'trouty' lies. The tree lined banks offer shade and some protection from the wind, which is predominantly a westerly and therefore blowing straight downstream - novice casters beware. It's also a tricky beat to wade so be sure to sport the right footwear and take a wading staff too.

Today the river was low. It's been low all season so nothing new there. But on this visit I really noticed how thin the riffles were looking and my confidence for some classic upstream nymphing was sapped immediately. A previous visit a week prior had produced nothing when upstream nymphing in similar conditions. Nevertheless, I had seen fishing rising in the tail-pools and flat glides from late morning so I embarked on a long session of dry fly fishing. Conditions were cloudy, around 18C with a stiffish wind (you guessed it, from the west) that had a somewhat cooling effect. I decided a long leader was necessary and the brownies were going to be spooky in the low water, so I extended a 12ft leader with another 3ft of light tippet. That was going to make casting and line control tricky for me ( I know my casting limitations), but I had a plan.

One of Fenni Fach's tail pools where all the action took place

The rising fish seemed to be locked on to emerging flies. There were heaps of sedge coming off, a good number of small olives and pale wateries and plenty of midge. I put a #18 klink onto my tippet an in I went.

A #16 version of the klink

The plan was to restrict my casting frequency and keep the disturbance on the water to a minimum. This was partly enforced by the wind gusting from time to time. I waited for windows of opportunity to deliver a good cast rather than toil with the wind and risk spooking fish with a bad cast. I also targeted rising fish across a 180 degree arc from where I was stood on the bank. No cast & search. If there weren't any rising fish I didn't cast. These tactics produced an afternoon of constant sport covering a tail pool and glide no more than 100 yards. Patience and planning really paid off this time. My only bugbear is that my success rate should have been far higher as I missed a lot of rises to my fly, but I'm working on line control and timing to improve this aspect of my abilities. The 6 fish that did make it to my net were of the highest quality and it was a privilege to return them unharmed. As I said, it was a good day to be on the river.

10 inches of quality Usk trout