Category Archives: River Taff

River Taff Updates

Little rivers with little reward!

Managed to get out for a few hours with my mate Burnsy on a small local river that normally fishes real well and has a good head of grayling in it, but not today for some reason

Conditions were steady with a bright sky and not to cold with a low wind. An anglers dream at this time of year. Setting up, I was thinking this should be good but I was so wrong! You can never tell how a day will go but that’s fishing!

Everything looked great with water levels spot on but the fishing was as tough as old boots. Changing methods, fishing hard on the bottom with big beads and mixing the depth up to no avail. As the afternoon progressed, the odd large dark olives came off and the odd spinner passed fluttering about but not enough to get the fish moving. I finally gave up and dug deep in my box and pulled out a squirmy worm, things got desperate for a take! Few casts later I took a grayling to my surprise.

If in doubt worm them out from now on lol, it doesn’t matter how long you have been fishing and how much experience you have, on days like this you feel like a newbie. Challenging and changing conditions can make you or break you. Never give up. Always think of doing different things and work every little run, ripple or pool. It was hard but we both caught a few in the end so not a red letter day but more than that we had a good day chewing the fat and putting the world to right.

New box of river nymphs complete!

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Been doing my best on completing this box of nymphs to get started on a smaller box ready for the future trips out!

I’m always looking at new patterns and trolling through fly images on good old uncle goggle looking for new ideas most nights. There are some real awesome people out there tying and always something new to give a go!

We all have our go-to nymphs and patterns that we have full faith in but we are always looking for that edge. Over the years of competing for wales in the river internationals and meeting some real awesome anglers, I’ve collected patterns from most and this is where I mix and match patterns for different rivers. Every little helps they say!

The next box will be more for grayling for the winter months so I’ll post some images after it’s complete. Tight lines guys and girls

Nice to be back tying after such a long time

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Well it’s been a long time since I’ve posted sorry guys and girls. Due to an eye condition it put everything on hold for over 9/10 months but I’m Back doing what I love, fly Fishing and fly tying.

I’ve started tying new boxes and sorting my gear ready for a day on the water. Well soon as we have water! What a crazy few months it’s been with this hot weather. Rivers are on there bones and fish are stressed. But tonight the heavens have opened:). Well here is what I’ve been tying the last few days ready for my trip!

C&R

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Catch and release is something I’ve always done on the river’s and it does work for sure!

Many of times Ive caught the same fish over the years and even in the same day.

I know quite a few that knock trout on the head for the pot and it’s up to them, but myself I like to have my fun and then release them to fight another day! C&R is the way forward to save are wonderful trout for the future and securing are great sport!

Few short C&R videos below 🙂

Grayling candy

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Well the grayling are back in the crosshairs and the vice has been red hot getting ready for it!

Hopefully the weather will be kind this year, giving us many chances to fish for the stunning fish!

Been tying all sorts and in all manner of colours,Pinks,purples, Flo orange and Gold. Always great to have a wide selection of colours in the box but also don’t forget the drab flies, the more natural looking colours, brown, tan, black, and greens!

Below there are a few selections of my favourites ready to hit the water. I’ll put up the more natural patterns soon. Warning please wear dark glasses with these images 🙂 All materials are bought from Funkyfly tying, Great company and great products!

Early Season Trouting

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The season is well under way here back in south wales but its not easy as norm for this time of year!

Fishing this time of year can be tough and can only be a few short hours of action in the day and that’s if the flies hatch. Being so early, the main flies that hatch are the large dark olive. Hatches have been starting around 11am to around 2pm but depending on the weather conditions!

Trout are not really responding to the nymphs around here in my local rivers but the grayling are in crazy mode ready to spawn and it’s hard to target only trout, so not done much nymphing as late so lessening the chances of catching out of season grayling. Although frustrating, using the dry fly and waiting on the hatches.. can be well worth it if your looking in the right places of the river. I’ve been very lucky to land a few of the better trout on the dry so one good fish can make that waiting worth while.

As we were wishing the rain to stop in the winter we are now wishing for rain to get the rivers going again and it’s happened and the rivers are in flood. I cant wait to get out and look for the bigger fish that have moved back into their spots! There has been a few match brown putting in an appearance so it’s looking up and can only get better from now on so lots of post coming up 🙂

Ill leave you with a few photos of what i’ve managed to catch!

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Grayling in the margins

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Well what a bloody mess this weather has been, rain rain rain! Rivers are in full flow and haven’t dropped much at all. I almost gave up and thought I would wait for the trout season to kick in but finally the rain stopped just enough for the river to drop and clear a little. Not ideal conditions but there we are, we have to make the most of it sometimes!

The river was still pushing and with a fair amount of colour but it’s the best it’s been for sometime so me and my butty Dan headed out hoping to find a few grayling tucked up in the margins out of the main flow!

Dan with a fine grayling below!

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Me and Dan went for more the czech nymping style of fishing, fishing close and under our feet and with a heavy bug at the point with a smaller more natural pattern on the dropper. The point fly with the most weight was to slow the drift and get down deep and to keep the smaller more natural nymph in the feeding zone! If it wasn’t dead drift they didn’t want to know at all! I did induce a few fish by giving the tip a jiggle and lifting the flies and dropping them, works well sometimes but not always!

Top dropper fly and the killer of the trip!

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Dan was well into the grayling, taking good numbers of all sizes tight in, we both switched back and forth going fish for fish working up the sides. Just wish we could have coveredd more of the water but it was impossible. I was glad the rain held off just enough for us to have a few hours to break the cabin fever.

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Searching for the grayling with Paul Jenkins

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Sunday morning was a bit of a blessing with good cloud cover and no rain or wind but the weather report was saying it was changing for the worse in the afternoon so me and Paul Jenkins made the most of the good conditions and decided we would search out the grayling along the river Taff!

Paul hasn’t done much fishing on the Taff for sometime due to fishing other water far and wide like the wye and other hidden little places so it was a change. We were on the water around 9.30 and checking out the fist pool of the day but someone already beat us to it so we moved up river to a long sweeping bend. Ideal place for the grayling to hide out. The far side was around 4ft deep with lovely pea gravel with the odd big rock around the place.

Nothing much going on with any sort of fly hatch going on that early so the bugs were out. we both set up on the nymphs. Paul moved in above me fishing the shallow side and I went below fishing the deeper side with the heavy bugs dragging the bottom. Paul was fishing the lighter nymph in the shallower water just on the edge of the drop off. Grayling love that edge and the slope into the deeper water so always concentrate on them areas, they will produce fish! Paul was the first to hook up to a lovely grayling around the 1lb, fin perfect.

Slowly we moved around the river searching all the likely looking areas and we did fish the slower deeper waters with the klink and dink and was rewarded with a few grayling but they just didn’t seem to be in that water in numbers! We targeted the heads of the pools with a little faster water due to seeing a few flies hatching. Fish did start rising but only for a short time and not really worth changing over, the wind started to pick up into the afternoon and the leaves stared to fall making things interesting and becoming a pain so we set off again up river to more open water and much slower.

French leader twirly style!

We changed over to long leaders and light nymphs and this seemed to do the trick. We started to pick off grayling in good numbers by working down river very slowly pitching the nymphs upstream and letting the leader go past you and down river with lots of upstream mends to keep the dead drift going. The slower the better and the takes were coming in thick and fast. We were having so much fun we didn’t realise the time and with that we decided to call it a day.

It was a great day out with Paul and the fishing was brilliant. Till the next trip and I can’t wait, ive got that grayling bug big time!

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First session on the grayling.

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The trout season has just passed so the grayling are the next target. Thymallus Thymallus, the lady of the stream!

Waking up nice and early with a zing in my step I was soon out the door and down the river setting up the 10ft 3wt. due to being so early and cold the nymphs were what I started on!

The point fly was a size 16 squirrel and partridge jig with a 2.5m bead and the dropper fly was an olive caddis pattern also with a 2.5m bead. These two nymphs are great all year around!I

I headed for the slower waters around 3/4ft of where the grayling like to hang around this time of the year, I opted for the two nymph setup with the French leader. I slowly fished up river casting a long line covering a lot of water with not much disturbance. It wasn’t long and the leader slipping up river to a fine grayling around the 1lb mark! First of the session and in perfect condition.

As the afternoon went on a few small olives started to hatch and it wasn’t long and the grayling started to rise. Problem was there were so many small grayling it was quite impossible to hook a better size grayling due to the fast little buggers taking the fly or dragging it under, so I changed back to the nymphs and fished hard on the bottom and it worked quite well. I still caught many smaller grayling but there were many more bigger fish than small so result!

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Late season trout

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Only a few days of the trout season left now and to make the most of it my good friend, Nicholas Steedman, and I spent a day on a small stream hoping to find some late season trout. A cold night meant that the fishing was slow in the morning although we both caught some lovely small trout in their spawning colours:

A superb hatch of various insects in the afternoon brought some great dry fly sport. The fish were clearly feeding hard before the winter and we were both able to pick off a number of fish that were picking off duns and emergers.

The standout fly of the day was this hot spot nymph:

The hot spot is tied with the new Harvey Angling micro fibre which is perfect for creating a bright target point on nymphs. However, it’s so fine that you can also use it for bodies on nymphs. The olive fly in the photo below was particularly good during hatch in the afternoon: