Tag Archives: Taff water level

Early Season Trouting

Leave a reply

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.DSCF8290

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!

DSCF8293

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Searching for the grayling with Paul Jenkins

5 Replies

DSCF7605

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!

DSCF7613

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.

DSCF7641

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.

DSCF7622

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.

DSCF7642

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.

DSCF7600

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!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

First session on the grayling.

Leave a reply

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

DSCF7523

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

DSCF7492-001

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.

DSCF7530

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!

click on the images below to enlarge

 

 

 

 

Finally a day on the grayling

Leave a reply

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!

SONY DSC

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!

DSCF1144

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!

DSC00020

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 🙂

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

 

 

The dries were in and the bugs were out!

Leave a reply

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! 🙂

SONY DSC

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!

SONY DSC

SONY DSC

 

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!

River Taff in Flood yet again!

1 Reply

What the hell is going on with this weather we are having at the moment, sick to death of it!

The river Taff  is in flood yet again and has been for some time with this unbelivable weather we are having.  The river has been pushing for sometime but its not all bad. The salmon and sewin have had the water to move into their spawning spots without any problems of the poaching metal heads getting anywhere near them.

Check out the chart below for Pontypridd area.

new level 2

Grayling it is

2 Replies

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!

SONY DSC

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.

SONY DSC

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

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Stream fishing.

Leave a reply

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.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Popping into my local fishing store, Harvey Angling.

Leave a reply

Well due to the rivers being all in flood after this awful weather we have been having, I thought i’d sort the tying gear out and check over my tackle to make sure i’ve got everything ready for when this weather buggers off and gives us Fishermen a chance to wet a line.

Having a bit of time on my hand after going over everything I thought i’d go and visit my local tackle shop to stock up on leaders and tying materials for the coming grayling season 🙂 exciting times!!!.

Here is a link below to the shop and they are also on facebook as Harvey angling so please check them out and  add a like 🙂http://www.cliff-harvey-angling.co.uk/ It’s a great family run business and very helpful in every way. Gareth the son has recently taken over the shop from cliff retiring after a good many years. The shop has now gone under major overall and stocking a wide range of materials for all kinds of anglers.

Getting back to the goodies.

In the past i’ve been paying around £10 for the hends camou french leaders but with Gareth they are the cheapest i’ve seen being £5.49. what a saving yea!? This is only one of many great deals everyone are missing out on. Every  penny counts these days! I know where i’ll be buying mine from now on, cheers Gar.

Just a few things I picked up below.