Tag Archives: Fly Fishing Tackle

Monnow Auction Guided day with Barry and Paul A.k.a. chuckle brothers!:)

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Slightly different day today for me I helped Rob Bending Guiding Barry and Paul, the successful winners of his Monnow auction lot, A day on the river Usk chasing wild browns!

More the dry fly anglers they both wanted to see what the French leader was all about and how it’s used Effectively.

They both had the right gear for it, 10ft 3/4wt rods & they were ready to go! We started off with the basics including, casting, line control, presentation & bite detection & before we knew it they were both getting takes & fish.

The guys were both keen to learn about fly selection & the reasoning behind it & this was explained & demonstrated throughout the day with the abundance of fly life & hatches coming off.

Later in the day the fish really came on & the guys got in to the fish with some dry fly action with the fish on hawthorns, medium olives & then midges. It was a pleasure to help rob guide two absolute gentlemen who were open minded & keen asking about the why? When? & How? Instead of just catching a bin full of fish.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day & you’re more than welcome back down anytime gents & cheers for the beers! 🍻

Winter fly tying

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With only a short number of hours in the day for Fishing the next best thing is tying flies!

I’ve done a fair bit over the a few months and posted quite a lot over Facebook and not here so making up for it. I’ve done a few smaller boxes of dries but mostly nymphs in all colours and sizes.

The nymph below has been the bomb for the grayling so far me and my good mates!

Hook, size 14 Hanak h450bl

Bead, 3.5m gold

Body, squirrel hybrid black pepper

Tag, glo bright 5

Rib, gold medium wire

Thorax, small amount of 17 spectra dubbing

To finish off add more squirrel in front of the 17 and brush over, it Gives a great affect when wet!

Winter bugging for grayling is something else. U love it or you hate it, and I love it! Everybody has there favourite pattern and for love no money you won’t get a look in but me I’m happy to show the world. Presentation and size and a splash of colour for good measure does me well 🙂

More flies to follow in the next posts I’ll be adding tying videos soon also. Hope you like the pattern and if you do tie it I’m sure your not going to be disappointed!

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!

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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

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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.

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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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Large dark olives are out in force!

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Headed out this morning around half past 9 with a plan 🙂

The plan was to see if the trout had moved into the shallower glides and runs already with all the fly life that has been going on, I did turn a few rocks over at the start to see what was going on under there. loads of stone clingers and olive nymphs ready to emerge 🙂 The wind and the bright sun was a bit of a pain from the start so I did wonder if the flies were going to make a appearance later on in the day with any good numbers. Only time would tell.

As ive said in other posts, early season can be tough and frustrating but it does get better as it goes on so hang on in there!.  I started with fishing the French leader with only the single nymph. set up was 4ft of 1.40 stroft around 3ft from the indicator to the point fly, the fly choice was a 3m silver head hares ear hotspot, scruffy as hell thing but a good early season fly for me!

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 The dry fly patterns I use to match the large dark olive hatch are the cdc emerger for the start of the hatch that works a treat and as the hatch goes on and the trout switch to the dun I use something a little different 🙂 Both patterns below!

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As I was bugging my way into the second run of the morning my good mate Sion Lewis AKA Lewy give me a ring asking where I was, not long after Lewy met me on the river hoping to brush the cobwebs away after a long absence off the river due to work commitments. It wasn’t long and lewy was into his first trout of the season for him.  Not a bad trout for the first either, lucky bugger 🙂

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As we moved our way around the river the olives started to hatch and the trout started to feed hard, we both were taking fish on the nymphs and the dry but we both decided on moving out of the faster flowing waters to go on to the flat pools concentrating on the rising fish!  The olive hatch was in full swing and fish started to rise all over the place. I did see a good number of March brown going by. I did catch one and give it a good looking at and they were march browns! It’s nice to see them in good numbers on the river Taff, over the years the hatches of the march brown have been very rare. I’ll try to get a good photo next time out, my little camera just doesn’t do the job so ill have my kit with me on the next outing. .

I’ll leave you with a few photos of the trout that we both caught 🙂

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Trout season is here and yes i’ve been out finally!

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As we all know the start of the season can be a killer, slow and very frustrating trying to catch your first trout of the new season, but don’t give up there is always one or two that like to play ball somewhere!

It’s trout season finally and the grayling are still playing ball also and are fun and I won’t turn no fish down but they can be a pain when your trying to locate a trout. At the moment the large dark olives been hatching slowly but getting better as spring arrives.  On the saturday the weather was very unsettled  with bright sun and a down stream wind so that was a washout but  sunday was a much better day with light rain and less wind. Good conditions for a better chance of a good hatch of dark olives. Around half past eleven, the LDO;s started to appear and steadily the hatch got better as the afternoon went on, the grayling didn’t wait around just mopping them up but I wasn’t looking for grayling,I was looking for a spotty! But i did have a little fun before moving on 🙂

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I moved away from the grayling and made my to the very ends of the pools waiting for a trout to poke its head out. Grayling tend to rise around the middle of the river and trout can be more tighter to the backs from where I was fishing, so that’s where i was watching. Finally I found two fish rising, i managed to catch the one and the second slipped the hook the bugger 🙂 I love this time of the year because on the river Taff you have to work that much harder to find and catch the trout!

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Not much trout action in the day but the grayling were fun and a few hours on the river is never wasted time! Looking forward to getting out next and maybe finding a few more trout rising and just maybe finding one of Taff monsters poking its nose out! Who knows what could happen!

The dries were in and the bugs were out!

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Over night rains put the local rivers out of action but there is always one or two cheeky fish that will rise in places so don’t let it beat you get out there and look for them spots! sometimes in can be very rewarding as you can see below! 🙂

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The river Taff below the house was up and brown due to the over night rains but this didn’t stop me and my mate Tony  from getting down there and seeing if we could winkey a few out in the conditions! The water clarity was very poor and there was debate on just saying bugger it and go home, but we kept at it looking and checking out the slack spots in the shallower runs. In this time we walked around a fair bit and as we were doing this a good steady hatch of blue wing olives started to hatch with a good number of august duns putting in appearance.  finally we found a few fish rising and i stuck 2 the dries and my mate stuck 2 the heavy metal bugging everything as he does 😉  check this  greedy stone loach out trying to eat my mates huge bug haha classic eyes way to big for its belly!SONY DSC

 

As i was saying i found fish rising so my setup was a 12ft tapperd leader going down to a 4lb point and at the end i tied on around 2ft of 1.40 stroft, ..love the stuff!. The dry that i tied on was a size 16 bwo pattern i tie, works well nothing to perfect but it works! didn’t take long and i was into the first fish and then the second and so on! was all good fun on the light tackle the 3wt took a beating because of the flow of the water, even the small fish put a hell of a bend in the rod that made things quite interesting until you had the fish under the tip i couldn’t tell how big they were really!

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I was surprised how many fish we both managed to catch in the rubbish conditions but was worth sticking it out for sure!. It was a tough few hours but well worth it!  Ill leave with a few photos below , hope you enjoy!

Grayling it is

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Well finally I had the chance to get out and do a bit of proper grayling fishing without the possibility of killing myself in the process due to high river conditions and wayward tree trunks!

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Sorry for the lack of posts over the past few weeks, between the river being in flood,and personal problems im back and will be updating much more often so please keep on checking out what I’ve been up to.

With the rivers finally dropped off nicely and the weather back to a constant mean, the chance of a blue sky over head and easy wading was grabbed by two hands and I was off out the door like a shot. The river couldn’t look any better but the morning frost was a little hard so I knew I should have left it a little bit later, but I had to get out. In the past years of grayling fishing on the Taff the magic hours have been from half eleven and to as late as three in the afternoon,  just before dark at the moment…

I knew it would be slow at first but I couldn’t help myself, I only took the bugging rod and left my dry fly rod at home. As you avid followers will know, I usually carry two fly rods but thought bugger it and just stuck with nymphs for the day… Not like me ey, Kie ;)… I knew there was a good chance of a hatch of olives could come off, but I have a little trick up my sleeve for when this happens. Anyway, as I thought, it was slow as hell at first, only taking a few out of season browns and not even a sniff from a grayling I moved further upstream and changed my approach.

ALL anglers fish the most likely looking spots, I mean the first crease or run which comes into sight. I do it all the time and am sometimes bit on the ass because of it. I decided to fish the less likely looking spots, fishing the water that I wouldn’t usually expect to catch grayling at this time of year, but today, it seemed that’s only where I could get them! I managed a few around the 9″ mark so it was well worth a shot.

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As time went on I seen the odd olive floating by so I moved into the head of the pools thinking that that’s where the nymphs are hatching so that’s where I would be if there was a fish at this time, sure enough after a few casts I managed one grayling over the 1lb mark and it went a little bonkers after that for some time. As I was looking down river I could see fish rising so I upped sticks and moved down to the tail of the pool to have a little fun. This is where the dry rod would have come in handy but I’ve been working on a few little things to cover this so a quick little change 🙂 and I was soon into fish after a few tweaks.

All in all a great day out with many grayling to the hand and im so looking forward to the next trip out.

Photo gallery below

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Flicking the dry fly

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After chatting to my mate Sion Lewis on the phone, we decided to have a few hours out before the rain kicked in as it was forecast to come in later on in the day.

Sion being a good man that he is come and picked me up and off we set looking for rising fish. The timing was perfect really when we finally got on the bank with blue wing olives coming off nicely and the odd rise, but it didn’t take long for the trout to lock on and start gorging on these little wee sweeties.

The fly pattern that I used to match the B.W.O

Makes you think on these times that all the time you have fished the river and fished these parts and not even having a take or even seeing a fish move. They are there but not bothered, but soon as these little jems start coming off every fish in the river goes mad. This can be a fantastic time for the dry fly angler and some great sport, you can even be cheeky and walk past fish and look for the better ones feeding. These better trout tend to be just ofF the bank and on times its like they are touching it, I had one today that was along side a large rock, I swear it must have been leaning on it and taking the flies that were touching the rock when coming around it in the flow. Love this kind of fishing because these tricky buggers can test the casting and presentation skills.

Me and Sion took turns on giving the tricky fish a go and just trying to target the better fish moving all the time we were out, it was great fun! Today the bugging rods didnt have a sniff and were set aside to keep out of the way.

Just a few photos below.

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Taff Diaries on Fishtec!

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Over the last few months i’ve been using almost exclusively Airflo fly fishing tackle and there are a few reasons for this…

I’ve always used ‘cheap fishing tackle’ and ended up buying more than once, something which is said time and time again between anglers and is true buying of products these days. The kit i’ve been shown by Kieron is great stuff, great build quality and preforms to the max. Most of the fly fishing tackle I’ve had is ideal for what I want and is just as good as anything I’ve seen by other, more expensive fishing tackle dealers.

I’ve now become part of their bloggers scheme where I received an email this morning describing that I’ve been lucky enough to have my blog featured under Fishtecs most favourite! Happy days 😀

Check the list out here for more exciting, informative and passionate fly fishing blogs – http://www.fishtec.co.uk/blog/more-great-fishing-blogs

Over the moon 😀 FishStalker.

Wales takes gold on the river Tay.

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Well what a hard week that was on the river Tay in Scotland, never have I ever fished a river so fast and wide and dangerous. The flow of water going through there was just beyond belief! Well where do I start really.

Dunkeld Bridge below 

I was lucky enough to be reserve for the Welsh rivers team for the international held on the river tay in Scotland and god what an eye opener it was. We headed out on the 23rd of June in advance of the comp so we would get a whole week of practice in for the international that was going to be held on the 29th. Conditions were not great with rain most days and an up and down stream wind. At points in the day, there were waves going down river and it was just bonkers to say the least. Kieron Jenkins, Captain of the team assigned everyone a different method to fish that day and would swap everyone the next day. Great tactics to covering all the water and seeing where the fish were and what depth they would be feeding at certain times in the day, Dries would go first then wets then the bugs would come in on the French leader and stimmy behind. Many fish come to all methods through the week but it was far from easy.

 The fly life wasn’t the best throughout the week but the odd day the fly life would be fantastic but you wouldn’t see a fish rise. This was so confusing and I just couldn’t believe that nothing was picking off these wee beasties, frustrated wasn’t the word for it. Most nights after a hard day searching out the water we would all be called in for a meeting by Kieron and Paul to discuss the day’s fishing as a team and lay the flies on the table for all to see. Then as a team we would decide on the best method to cover the water that we tackled that day. After the meetings we would all have a few hours tying and then to the bar for a little banter with the other teams. All in good fun. I met some cracking chaps and I do hope I get the chance to be there again some time.

Competition day…..

It was a nice and early start, double checking the gear over and then a quick breakfast and off we set to meet the controllers for the day’s fishing ahead. Around this time reports started coming in that the river had risen around 3ft over night and this was quite concerning for the fishing ahead.  The plan was that i would run for Kieron in the morning and then in the second session I would run for Mark Willows, this was a great opportunity for me to see other anglers on the water in focus mode and to see their styles in action. Kieron, me and his controller got to our peg and what we knew about the water just went straight out of the window. River was up,coloured and the wind was making a quite a nuisance of itself. The time come for kieron to step in for his first session and he started off in a lovely run screaming fish but it wasnt to be. Everything was working against him and he left the first session with a blank but made up in the second session. fishing was out and out hard going.

After the morning session were over we all had to go back and meet up and have a bite to eat before leaving for the last sessions of the day. This was a tense time waiting on the boys to come in and say how they done in the sessions. I think the all round smiles said it all when we all finally met up that we were doing well.  Food was done and handshakes all round and it was back out for the second round, eager and confident. This time I was out with Mark willows for the final sessions of the day, we got to the peg nice and early checking that water out and just hoping that we didn’t have to run out looking for something that was fishable. Mark set the one rod up on wets and the other on the heavy bugs. Before we knew it, it was time for Mark to get in and fish his heart out. As I said before nothing looked familiar and we were all back to a blank canvas.  As Mark fished the wets and covered a fair bit of water, I spotted a few fish on the other side rising, this was our opportunity to give them hell, the information was passed over to Mark and he instantly changed methods and made his way straight to the spot with plenty of time to spare in the first session. I had my fingers crossed that we wouldn’t blank in the first, with only minutes to spare Mark had a measure in the net. Big smiles all round. Mark moved out of the spot where the fish were rising and left them alone till the next session started, he changed over at this time doing a little bit of heavy bugging but with no success. The second session kicked in so he moved back into the spot where the fish were, after a few casts, Mark was into a fine trout and no blanks, that’s all we wanted to do. The last session ended with 2 fish and god what a relief it was.  Mark done so well and I was proud to be there with him.  After a big handshake we moved out to go back to the hotel to find out the final scores. We all waited in the car park after putting in the score cards.  You could feel the tension in the air. As we all moved on down the car park I could see paul with his hand in the air and with the biggest smile i’ve ever seen. You could see how proud he was with the team. We went into the club and straight away the handshakes kicked off with everyone  saying well done boys 🙂   We did it! Wales takes the gold, what a feeling and I was so proud of all the boys for pulling out all the stops and bringing home the gold for Wales. I don’t really remember much after that but here are the photos of the team and the captain Kieron Jenkins and Alun Hughes for taking top rod.

I’m a proud Welshman and im so proud of the boys for doing so well in the condition. Well done to all.

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