Tag Archives: brook duns

Fishing the river Usk

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Over the weekend me and my good mate sam went and had a little look at the river Usk in Mardy. It’s been a long time since I’ve fished the beat, I think it was the year before on the March browns and we caught it perfect if I can remember rightly!

We got to the river quite early and bumped into another angler walking off the beat but he was on the Wye and Usk passport, so after a little chat and saving the guy some cash in his future trips we headed up river scanning the river for anything moving! We did spot a fish but it only popped up the once. Time was around 10.30am and there were some Signs of fly activity!

Fly life this time of the year can be a right mix-and-match. Olives, small olives, brookduns, yellow mays, mayfly, black gnats and many more! It Can be a minefield for anglers matching the size and pattern that the trout lock onto!

While waiting on the trout to react to the flies, me and Sam done a little nymphing in the fast water and the deeper pools with good results. We both got busted up and was a little disappointed but that’s how it goes.

We did catch around half a dozen between us, nothing big but pure quality!

Finally moving out of the fast water, we made our way to the long tails hoping to find trout rising and there were a few taking olives and the odd bigger duns so we set up the dry rods. I was using my 10ft 3wt with a leader around 16/18ft for Presentation

But just before Stalking a trout rising on the far bank, I watched a guy for a while before going over to chat with him. His name was Glyn and he was quite new to it so I lent a hand changing his set up and helping him get better presentation. Was great chatting about fishing and we dropped onto the subject of the fishing blogs he reads. He said he reads a blog taff Diaries 🙂 made me smile because it was all good. I then Re-introduced myself as the writer. we both laughed for a bit after!

I love how fishing can bring people together from all walks of life on the river. It was great chatting away about flies and leaders and I hope I helped and explained it enough to understand

Sam getting ready to slip the net under yet another lovely river Usk wild brown trout on the dry!

These are the flies I fished throughout the day below. Simple but they do the job 🙂

Liquid Glass UV Cure Resin

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Cold, damp spring days aren’t favoured by many but for the fisherman, they can offer superb fishing. Inverterbrates seem to favour these dour days and hatch en masse. None more so than the dimunitive Iron Blue Dun which can often save the day when you might have second thoughts about going fishing. Today was one of those days and my good friend, Nicholas Steedman, and I experienced a hatch of Iron Blue Duns of biblical proportions. The river was covered with duns! These rare occasions can prove frustrating – with more food available than even the greediest trout can feed on, they become selective and tricky to fool. Surprisingly today the stand out fly was a Large Brook Dun ’emerger’ which is generic enough to pass as a general olive emerger pattern. Large Brook Duns are frequently claimed to be of no interest to the fisherman but these large upwings often get blown onto the water or hatch mid-river (despite only being meant to hatch by crawling up stones on the side of the river). With thousands of Iron Blue Duns and a smattering of Large Brook Duns plus a few other species the trout were spoilt for choice today but the larger imitation certainly proved the most effective at fooling some tricky trout:-)

I’ve included a few photos of the fly below (previously posted on an earlier post). The body is natural stripped peacock quill which is protected by Harvey Angling’s Liquid Glass UV Cure Resin which dries clear and tack free – exactly what you want from a UV resin! Give the fly a try, you won’t be disappointed;-)

Dressing:
Hook Tiemco TMC 200R #14
Tail: Coq de Leon
Abdomen: Stripped quill (natural) and liquid glass uv resin
Thorax: Fox squirrel
Wing: cdc
Hackle: Metz Honey Dun

The Liquid Glass UV Resin is available from Harvey Angling

march brown

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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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Hide and seek!

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Last week i bought myself a video camera planning to make a few short videos on fish rising and hopefully a few other catching fish on the dries and nymphs.

For the last few days ive been walking the banks looking for big fish rising and i finally found what i was looking 🙂 check out the video below and see this beast taking brookduns one after anther

After taking the video above watching this fine large brown trout feeding i turned the camera off and made my way to the spot where the fish was. The rod wasnt even set up so that was done in no time still watching the trout rising, but when it came to leader and tipped extra care was taken with trying the knots! didn’t want to hook it and have  knot slip or anything so it was ll down to me to get the cast right and to land the fish,, Well i manged to get the right cast and the trout took the fly sweet as a nut and what a ride it took me on.  after a while the trout come to the net  i made anther short video just before release,, cracking fish and what a lovely wild fish it was 🙂

video of the fish landed just before release 🙂 Hog!

 

Out and about on the Rhondda.

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After chatting on the phone to Paul Jenkins AKA Bushy for some time we decided to have a look around the taff and the Rhondda the next morning,

Bushy came and picked me up in the morning around 8 am and off we set but before we even set foot in the river Bushy had to fill his stomach in McDonald’s. Like father like son! Now I know were Kieron gets it from 🙂 After the bite to eat, we checked out the lower parts of the Taff  but the river was still pushing quite har., It was a little to high to get to where we wanted to check out for the grayling so we headed off to have a look at the Rhondda for a spot of trout fishing instead. River conditions were much better up there and it looked quite inviting when we got there so the gear was on in no time and the rods were set up with the french leader and off we set for the first run of the day. Bushy stepped back and let me start the day and in no time I was into my first fish. After this we went fish for fish all day and it just got better and better as we worked our way up river, fishing all the pocket water and little glides we came across.  Bushy being Bushy pulled out all the better fish of the day and I was left with the spats as he called them, Terry sprat was my name for the day after that, thanks Bushy.  It was a great days fishing and great company and as always I learned a few things from Paul and I’ll be trying them out when im on the water next. Just a few photos of are great day we had below.

Bushy below  

River Taff

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Decided to hit the Taff nice and early this morning and I was on the river for around 6.30. Due to the overnight rain, the river was running with colour and I did think it was be a waste of time on looking at it first but I knew at some point in the day it would clear a little so I pressed on.

I didn’t really know where to start on the river this morning due to the colour so I headed up river for the shallow runs and pools that I knew for. On being so early and still quite cold there was no fly life buzzing around so the french leader was set up with only one 2m hares ear jig.  Not a very heavy fly but I was only fishing the margins and little ripples and glides,  just picking my way up river slowly.  It seamed that I was flogging a dead horse but after covering a few runs I finally managed to catch one small trout in the edge. Not very big but I was very gracious of catching the wee fella in the conditions.  By the time I worked my way up river a fair distance without catching a single fish, I decided to sit down and just chill for a bit just watching the water and wildlife. It’s surprising what you see if you open your eyes and keep still.  I was lucky enough to watch a King Fisher on the far bank doing what they do best.  On this part of the river its quite wide and my zoom on my camera was not good enough to take the  picture, gutting really but I am saving for a new zoom  lens 🙂 As the morning started to warm up, the fly life started to kick in with a few small olives coming off and I did push a few brook duns off the bank side while walking up river. It was just one of them days on the fishing side. It seemed that the river was void of fish and movement. As the day went on with only one fish to hand I was feeling a little daunted and my mind was wandering of the fishing.  I made one last ditch attempt to find fish by getting out of the river and walking up river a few miles. By the time I got to the place I wanted to be, the river was clearing off nicely.

This is where i stept in above

The flow was a little faster where I ended up so I had to change the setup, I pulled off around 4 feet of 3lb stroft ABR and tied in a dropper around 18″  from the point fly. As always I had a Hares ear jig and on the dropper a PT flash back. The decision  to move up river and changing the set-up was a good idea, it all come together and fish started to come to hand in no time. I was quite glad really.  In the photo above on the left hand side you can see a large boulder and this is where this little beauty come from below

As I was releasing this trout the heavens opened up and I mean it was hammering down to say the least. I took cover for a few minutes until it passed over and carried on fishing. As i was moving on,  I came upon a long pool with a few fish rising in the back edge and along the far bank. I slipped the dry rod off my back and set it  up with a 15ft tapered leader that Kieron Jenkins kindly got me, for the fly I used a size 16 olive pattern. There were a few Blue wings around and a few iron blue duns. I couldn’t really see what they were taking so i took a chance and after the second cast, the fish took the fly as sweet as a nut!. A few more came to hand after the first one and it was going well until I got to the middle of the pool and for some reason it went dead,  so after that I made my way back down river to get closer to home because it was getting quite late in the day. As i moved back down from where I came from I could see a few fish on the fin, so I had a play around before making a move home.

The Cynon outing

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I had a phone call last night off Kieron jenkins asking if i would be interested in fishing the Cynon with him. I’ve never fished the river before so it was a good opportunity to have a look and it’s always an experience fishing with Kieron to say the least ;).

After a quick journey on the train in the morning, i met with kieron and off we set to fish the Cynon. Seeing the river for the first time kind of reminded me of the river Rhondda but not has rocky. I couldn’t wait to set up and get a fly in the water like always. As we havent had much rain for the past few weeks, the water level is very low so we decided to go for fish for fish. I set up on the dry,  Size 16 cdc olive and Kierion set up the french leader. With the conditions, using the leader, kieron pulled off around 3ft of nylon and attached that to the indicator and then from there the nymph, he used a 2m flashback ptn. Cracking all round pattern for any river and conditions.  The weather seamed to be holding for us with heavy cloud cover and the odd glimpse of sunshine breaking through and the odd small shower.

As we moved up river seeing a good few fish rising we thought it was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel, but it wasnt to be. They were highly spooky and just didn’t want to know the dry. We came to the conclusion that they must have been picking up midges or something. Kieron tried all kinds of flies but only managed one. Just one of them things i think. The leader was more effective so that’s what we did for the rest of the day with the odd flick of the dry with no success.

Kieron below holding a fine brown trout

As we picked our way through all the pocket water and runs we came across, we found that we would only pick one fish out of each pocket and run and no more. The fishing was quite hard and in some parts where you would think you would pick one out it was dead.  Hard fishing but great fishing,

There were a few sherry spinners around, a few Blue wing olives and the odd brook dun but it didn’t help with the dry fly fishing so we just kept on plugging away with the nymphs  picking a few more trout out. At this time it was getting quit late in the day and we were both running low on energy   so we called it a day.

Brook dun below

Just a few more photos of are day below

We will be fishing it again when we have a little rain and the level is a little higher so we can see if it makes any difference on the numbers. All in all a great days  fishing and great company and as always i learned a few things off my good mate Kie

A photo of the river when we were leaving below

Unplaned trip to the clydach

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As friday day was coming to its end I decided to have a walk down to see how the Rhondda was looking after the recent rain to see if there was any possibility of fishing it the following morning with my mate Dan. It was still running high but running as clear as a bell. It was all set then to fish in the morning, well we thought it was.

The following morning I woke to the sound of rain on my flat roof. After dragging myself out of bed to have a look to see how the Taff was running  to gauge how much rain we had in the night, it was clear that we had a fair bit but I was hoping that the Rhondda wasn’t effected too much. It’s surprising with the Rhondda, it rises quick and falls just as quick. Not bad having two cracking rivers on your door step. As I was thinking and hoping that it was fishable, my mate Dan rang to say he was on his way and to meet him by the train station. After a short wait, Dan arrived and we made the dreaded walk to have a look at the Rhondda. I could hear the river and I knew straight away we had no chance, I looked over the wall and it was running way deep and fast with a slight colour. That was the end of that so we had a quick chat and then decided to check the clydach out . We put are marching boots on and away we went. We finally got to the stream around 9ish and all looked good. It was Dan’s first time on the clydach and I just couldn’t wait to show him around. I know Dan loves fishing the stream and I knew that he was in for a treat. The stream was running with a fair flow and coloured but I knew that it would clear off later in the day. Dan set up on the dry straight away and I could see that he was itching for the first cast so I left him to it. Myself, I set up on the klink and dink because of the water colour knowing that I had a better chance with the nymphs but also knowing there was a chance on the dry. I put on a Size 14 hare’s ear klinkhammer, and on the dink a 2m gold hare’s ear jig.  When I’m using this method in the stream when it’s coloured I tend not to cast the fly line out, I just use a long leader and get in as close as I can and hold everything of the water to minimize drag on both the nymphs and dry and it works very well for me.

Dan below tying his very large dry on at the start of the day.

These are the kind of runs that are all over the Clydach and what more can I say but beautiful, I’m a lucky man. Every corner looks better than the last and every pool and run holds a golden gem. As the day went on with many fine trout to hand, Dan my good mate was a little camera-shy for some reason and took over taking the shots and a few short videos of me using the klink and dink. Just want to say, Dan thanks for taking the photos and the great videos mate. I hope the flies come in handy;) As I was saying Dan shot a few cracking videos of me catching a few trout in a lovely looking pool. Here they are.

The video below was my best fish of the day for myself. It put up a cracking fight taking me down river and trying its best to snag me up in the tree roots but after that little commotion, he slipped into the net and after a quick photo was released to get on with its business without harm

Here is a better shot of the trout from the video above 🙂

After catching that fine stream trout me and Dan just sat back and had a bite to eat and just talked about the fishing as you do and a few other things. After Dan talked my ear off 😉 I thought it was time to move on, Dan I just had to get that in mate :). At this point the river was clearing up a little and a few brook duns started to come off along with a few olives & stone flies. With this hatch on we were just waiting on the fish to start rising but it just didn’t happen. They were just hooked on the nymph and didn’t bother with the dry for some reason. I found out Dan was a bit of a purist at this point on the streams and didn’t really want to change from the single dry fly and it was hard trying to convince him to put a nymph under his dry; the stubborn bugger. Dan being Dan just had to go on with the dry for a little longer and prove me wrong by catching a fair few in one long run, I take my hat off to his perseverance and determination to catch on the dry, here is the stubborn bugger below getting into a good position.

As the day went on me and Dan got stuck right into it fishing hard with many trout to hand and a few good fish lost at the net. I’ve got to say Dan lost a right lump in one run and was very  unlucky not to land it . I’m sure it would have been the fish of the day by miles, big head shake and a flash and gone. It’s never a nice thing losing a good fish  but chin up and move on and find the next.

After a long days fishing with dan with a good number of lovely wild trout to hand its was that time to make a move home again. Not an easy decision to make with the fishing being so good and having great company to share it with. Thanks Dan.

Just two more video from the great day’s fishing on the klink and dink along with a few more photos.

And finally the view of the river when we were going home

River Taff today

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Today me and my friend Paul Jenkins ‘Bushy’ fished the newly leased ‘Ospreys’ streach of the River Taff at Cilfynydd towards Abercynon.

We met at the Car park in Cilfynyd ind’est at 9am.  We walked to what was the old boundary of the Ospreys stretch and started to walk the newly acquired waters – looking at the pools and debating what methods to use. As always, I took two fly rods, My  Greys streamflex 10ft 3# and My favourite – Greys GS2 8ft 4#. Carrying two rods can sometimes be a pain, but due to the frequent but sporadic hatches of Olives, Yellow mays and Brook duns having two rods enables me to swap and change without re-tying my leaders or methods and cover that fish that s rising before it goes down.

To start, I tackled up with a team of flies on a french leader. My french leader consists of a 9 meter tapered  leader and a duo coloured indicator nylon.

The business end consisted of 6ft of 4lb Stroft ABR and two jigs spaced around 18 inches apart. The flies where basically hears ears with 3mm tungsten heads – gold and black.

After a quick chat with Bushy, we decided to fish – fish for fish. Meaning one of us would fish and the other watching, I like this method of fishing because it allows me to watch different anglers in different situation. As Bushy is one of the top class anglers in the country, it’s always good to keep a sharp eye on what flies ‘he’s putting on and what he’s doing in different water.

We worked our way up the stretch taking around 6-7 fish out of the first 100 yards between us, It was obvious we were doing something right! The river was on good form although being low and clear, the fish were very obliging in taking our nymphs.

Once fishing the fast pocket water, we could see a nice long glide in the horizon! So it was on our bike and towards to pool we went. Creeping and peering through the pea shooters it was obvious this was a big fish pool! And that it was! After carefully negotiating my way across the slow deep pool, trying not to fall in or spook the pool, we got to the fishable side of the pool where the run was on the opposite side and the eddy was in easy reach. It was running about 6ft deep, too deep to wade but just the right depth for me to french nymph. After working the crease closest to me, where the quicker water meets the slack on the inside it was obvious the fish wern’t there! Or was it my flies not getting deep enough? So it was into the box, and on with the 3.5mm tungsten. First cast, indicator stopped and upriver she went, with nothing but my 3 weight rod to stop her I knew I had a fight on my hands. Running, diving and doing everything possible it could to free my hook I gently persuaded her into my net. And after a quick photo, off she went to fight another day.

After taking maybe 20 fish between us,  and working near enough a mile upstream Kieron, Pauls son joined us. Kieron tackled up with basically the same as me, two jigs on a french leader.. although they were from his secret box which doesn’t come out a lot 😉 I have tried to have a look but it seems to disappear quicker than the little minnows in the shallows. He was quickly into his first fish, taking one second cast around the pound mark on a red tag jig. Bushy spotted another just swirl under the surface and the next cast, it was in the net.

Moving swiftly upstream, into a fast but shallow run I could see Kieron was into a good fish. I rushed downstream getting the camera ready and into video mode and into a good position to watch the fish slip into the net, but as he was lifting the rod to lure the fish, the fly came out and the point fly hooked into the adipose fin. Take a look at the video below of how not to land a fish! LOL


 

The river above where we met, started to get wider, slower and deeper. By this time there were not so many flies hatching and the fishing started to slow down. So we started to move to the head of the pools taking the easier fish just to build our numbers up. Not long later we decided to make a move after a long day searching with better than expected results.