Tag Archives: fly

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

Rhondda outing after the recent flood

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Im so glad that the weather made  improvement from raining hard most of the weekend and giving me the chance to wet a fly before I had to back to work on Monday.

Waking up this morning and seeing the weather had broken I was  relieved to say the least. It felt like the rain was never going to stop and i was thinking no fishing this weekend for me..  After a quick coffee and  putting the gear on i was on my way to the Rhondda around 7 am. Before i entered the Rhondda i give the Taff a quick look to see how the old girl was running. She was still pushing a fair bit of flood water and a fair bit of colour also. Unfishable really. The Rhondda was in much better shape but still running with a good force but clear. I know after a good flood and dropping water it can be unbelievable fishing on times. As usual i had my both rods with me, My greys 10ft 3wt and the greys 8ft 4wt. Im known as two rod Terry around these parts:) I feel naked with only one so even if i don’t use its always with me. French leader set on the 10ft and the dry on the other.  With so much water i put a 3.5m gold head hairs ear on the point and on the dropper a 2.8m P.TN vereant  

Starting off with the french leader i picked my way up river very gingerly fishing all the slack water i could find and placing my feet as careful as i could, i didn’t want a wetting and didn’t fancy taking a swim either.  I come to a very fast deep run and made my way across the river so i could fish the slack part behind a few submerged boulders where if i was a trout ide be hiding. I set my video cam on and thought ide show you  a few videos using the french leader with good success.

After making these short videos i made my way up river a little further to the slower water hoping that there might be a fish or two on the fin, at this time there were a few B.W.O on the water so i was betting there was. But before i got to the slower waters i see a lovely rise on the far side of a fast run, just beside a huge rock.  I had a size 14 olive pattern on well  hackled for the fast water so you can pick it out easily. Getting myself into a good position i mad a few  casts to judge the distance and flow. Atter getting it right after a few casts,well more than a few cast i managed to fool him.  Here he is below

Well the way it was going i thought it just couldnt get better. (WELL THATS WHAT I THOUGHT) Trout started to rise in good numbers all down to the better hatch of olives on the water and i was steadily making good numbers. This is why i like to use two rods because you can change over with no bother at all. As i was making my way just watching the bank for the really slow and small rises, hoping for a better size trout to be feeding i seen a small little splash under a tree branch just touching the water, well not a splash it was more like a little jet of water, nothing really i just thought minnows, but something just told me to check it out.  I made my way to a spot over looking the water and to my SURPRISE!!! i seen this large trout just mopping up the olives just under an over hanging bush. I got the camera out and shot this video 🙂 I was just  fascinated watching him taking the flies. I think im really lucky to see this and catch this on camera on are river.

 The adrenaline started to pump and i knew that i had to go into stalker mode as i call it:). To get to the spot where he was feeding i had to walk about 100 yards back up river and make my ways down to where he was feeding.. As i as walking back down i was wishing he was still there and still feeding. As i got closer i could see him just coming up under the bush. I moved down past him trying not to make much noise in the water and not to send any ripples across the water.  I greased the fly up and put mud on the tippet and dipped both in the water before casting. I knew that i had one chance and one chance only. I made the cast and the fly just drifted bang on-line where he was feeding and the drift was perfect but he didn’t even move. So i sat back and watched for a few moment and i seen that he was started to take one out of every few olives that pasts. He rose and i left it for a moment and i made the cast. It all kind of went in slow motion and he just sucked it in and i made the strike . He just sat there for a second and then he started to shake his head and straight away he was fully out of the water tail waking down river. There was no way i was going to stop him so off i went. After a wild few runs and jumps i managed to get him to hand. Cracking fish and im still smiling writing this 🙂 after a few quick photos i slipped him back to fight anther day. Here he is

What more can i say after catching this fine trout. After releasing him i just sat there just taking everything in and after that i headed off home with a hell of a smile on my face just thinking it just don’t get better than that…

 

 

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.