Category Archives: Stream fly fishing

Little rivers with little reward!

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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

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 🙂

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:

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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.

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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:

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Finally a day on the grayling

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The conditions are great but the levels are not, the Taff has been holding its high level for weeks but it’s nice and clear and all you can do is fish the inside line in most pools with a fair bit of dodgy wading. Bit cold for swimming this time of year so much care is taken and with shore footing!

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I’ve been catching quite well and enjoying catching the small grayling in the shallower waters close to the banks but now and again you find a few fat pigs hiding in a hole 🙂  bloody Grayling are stuffed solid and I think a few that I have caught have been quite close to bursting haha  food must be plenty in there! Good news for all!

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I’m quite impressed on the condition of the grayling this year and its great to see them in good numbers in all sizes once again! Like everything it has it’s ups and down but the Taff hasn’t really had a good grayling year for a few years.

Tactics! I’ve been mostly working the inside of the fast runs due to the higher water levels, grayling like to just sit off the main flow darting in and out picking off food passing so less energy is used! Sp, target the slower water out of the main flow, this can prove deadly but don’t forget the fast water entirely. Everywhere is worth trying!. In the colder months of winter, grayling can be very picky on where they lay, they move around a lot. In the morning they can be right in the tails of pools and in the afternoon they can move right into the heads of the pool in a foot of water or less feeding hard. Some people can make the mistake of walking through this water and I have many of times thinking they are just not there, take the time to work the water’s and it will pay off in the end!

This fish below was caught in a tail end of a deep pool using the French leader with the two nymph setup. Tippet 1.80kg stroft. length around 4 half feet from the indicator to the point fly. dropper tied on around 20″ above point fly! Nymphs… Point fly 3.5m hotspot hairs ear jig and on the dropper a 3m copper olive caddis pattern, this was the fly that fooled the grayling below!

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DSCF1151All in all it was a cracking day and many fish fell to both of the flies shown above so get tying if you haven’t got them in your box! Not done much on here for sometime, sorry about that people but I will be back on track from now on! cheers for checking in guys and girls 🙂

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Browns and Brook duns.

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Well the Brook duns are out in force and about time to!

I manged to get out on the river for a few hours in the week after a bonkers morning so rang the boss and had the day off and after sorting a load of stuff out i hit the river for a few hours.

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I knew one of my mates was on the river that day so i made a quick call and met up with him and his butty. when i met them up around 11.30 the flies started to hatch and the day looked quit promising. Finally we caught sight of the brook duns taking off on the stones as we walked the river. In the  night  we had a fair amount of rain making the river quit cloudy but we knew it would clear over time and i always love fishing the river with a slight colour to it, it can be the best time to look for the larger fish on the move around and with good amounts of brook duns coming down the chances were in are favour :).

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As the hatch was well under way the trout started to go nuts and even the grayling got in on the action. Rob and Adrian were having a right ball taking fish left right and centre in a long pool. I held back just watching and spotting fish but my eye was set on something else. I just knew it would’nt be long and i would here that noise that makes the heart jump and the hand shake. GULP!!! 🙂 took me a bit of time to pin point the bugger because there were a few fish rising on the far bank tight. i waited and watched and then i seen the bugger, i watched a brook dun come down and then that spotty nose pocket through the film of the water and that gulp noise and it was the end of the brook dun. I got myself into a good casting position and made the cast. as the fly went down it went all in slow motion and bang fish on,, cracking fight and what a lovely fish to catch.  It was a lovely 4lb 8oz brown 🙂

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As the fishing was going nuts i sat there just watching Rob and Adrian catching fish and having  great time, we headed up river just using the dries, was plenty of  bugging water but bit sick of chucking tungsten and with so many fish rising it was just pointless anyway!. Rob and Adrian took many fish  around the 2lb mark.. I didn’t have much time left after that so i had 2 head home to pick my son up from school so the boys followed and all in all it was a wild few hours fishing and was great to see a cracking Brook duns hatch for ones 🙂 Rob below with some of the lovely browns he had!

 

 

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Stream fishing.

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Well it happened once again with the rain coming in and making the main rivers unfishable and deadly again.

With the rivers being out I knew that the streams would be the best bet and most often or not they are totally fishable even when the rivers are way up. My good mate Lewy fancied a change from the bigger rivers and sewin fishing so this was a good opportunity to do so, so the stream it was.

We set off around 12 taking it easy just thinking we would just have a few hours out and be home early to keep the wives happy 😉 The stream was not untouched by the heavy rains and she was pushing and coloured but it can fish quite well in these condition and from past experiences I knew that it would clear later on in the day. Dry fly was not an option so it was nymphing till the river cleared, I was looking out for fish on the fin but it was just pushing too much and too coloured. There was an abundance of stone flies hanging in the air and a few olives but it made no difference what was hatching in the conditions.

Sion fishing a fine pool below.

Sion took a few out of this pool and after the takes dried up he worked his way around the pocket water above doing the same by taking fish from every little crease and pocket There was no signs of the river clearing at this point and with a few odd showers we didn’t expect it to really.

As we moved around the stream, we both took turns fishing spots and going fish for fish, many fish were caught and every one of them were beautiful little gems. I took a lot of photos throughout the few hours we were out and usually i’m the one behind the camera but Lewy took over for some time catching a few shots of me holding a few little gems

I’ll leave you with a few photos of the day below.

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