Tag Archives: Taff water level

Just a few for the morning

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Looking in the box today i found that i was running low on a few patterns so i just sat down and tied a few for an early morning trip out with my mate Ceri sweeney.

6 of each pattern tied on size 16 j hooks bought from here.http://www.flytyingboutique.com/.

The water levels around my area in south Wales are quite low at the moment so smaller the better! God we need rain but not to much! Hope you like the patterns!

Jig nymphs.

 Emerges.

 Duns.

All before the rain set in

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I was checking the weather report last night and it didn’t look good for today but I sorted the gear out anyway just in case the weather man was lying again 🙂  As I woke up and I listened to see if I could hear the rain on the flat roof but I heard nothing so up I got and opened the window to see. The Taff just below the house was looking totally fishable and inviting.

I didn’t wait around, I just got the gear on and made my way down to the Taff, this only took me a matter of minutes and I was on the river bank checking out the far run across the river where i’ve had some fantastic sport in the past. The water was up a few inches but not noticeable really but it did have a slight tinge of colour to it. Having both rods as usual I only set the 10ft 3wt up to do a spot of light nymphing on the slack side of the run that I was looking at.  The water depth was around 2 ft at most so I pulled about 3ft of stroft off and tied that to the indicator and at the point I  tied on a single nymph, it was a black bead hares ear jig, size 16.

I slowly got myself into position just below the run so I could cast the french leader up into the run and keep the indicator pointing up river giving me direct contact with the nymph.  Light nymphing can be so delicate and the takes just the same. Sometime the takes can be that delicate that you wont even see the line move or stop. It’s like a sense that something is wrong so you strike and there the fish is. Casting my way up the slack side I managed to fool a few trout and as I hit the head of the run I changed the weight of the fly so I could cover the more turbulent water. Many more fish fell to the single fly in this kind of water and after the takes slowed down I came from there looking for the next likely looking spot. At this time my good mate Sion Lewis turned up looking to fill his boots with the wild Taff brownies..

Sion lewis with a fine Taff Trout below

Me and Sion slowly worked our way around the runs and pools picking a good number of nice size trout out with a good amount of banter as you do amongst mates 🙂 I did mange a few on the dry after a short hatch of small olives made an appearance and even Sion got in on the action by whipping the rod out of my hands 🙂

The sun was bright for a while but it didn’t take long to cloud over and then the rain started and the river become quite coloured. Fishing become quite tough but we both pressed on fishing close to the banks and margins and the very slow waters of the fast runs. Visibility was very poor but we still manged to take a few in these conditions . Sion moved on up river past me targeting the much shallower water where visibility was much better. I kind of watched Sion fishing for a while and he was doing really well by taking fish from every small run and from behind every rock that was visible. Sometimes I just like to watch other anglers fishing and see how they tackle certain waters and how they go about it.  After another hour the condition just got worse and the river started to rise even more so that was that really. Not a bad few hours and some cracking sport with a good mate!

I’ll leave you with a gallery of the photos that we both took in our few hours out,

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Lewy you old dog, congratulations on making the Wales team mate, Proud of you and look forward to fishing with you in the international next year. We got lots of fishing to do now and we got a good excuse for it now 🙂

River Taff & Rhondda in flood once again!

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We needed rain but come on this is just ridiculous

I had the weekend all planned with a good Friend Nicholas Steedman to come over and give the river Taff a bit of a looking at and even the river Rhondda might have had a little bit of attention. But it’s always the same, we pray for rain so the rivers will pick up a little and get the fish going but it just can’t rain a little bit, oh no it has to to rain cats and dogs and write the river off completely. The plans have gone out the window and down the Taff into Cardiff bay.So the next best thing will have to do, tying flies,a mixture of dry flies and nymphs. It will be a full weekend job so by the end of it i’ll have enough to cover me for a week on the river Tay in Scotland and the river trails in July 🙂 God i’ve  got a busy time ahead of me but really looking forward it!

Fishing the river Taff

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Not posted for a while due to being on holidays for a few weeks in Jamaica and god what a holiday it was but there you are back to normality and back to the fishing.

I was out on the river today with a good friend that I haven’t fished with for some time and it was good to have the old partner in crime around again.  Due to the overnight rain, the river Taff was running with a few inches on and with a slight colour but it didn’t dampen the fishing spirit!. Matthew my mate concentrated on the deep pools and the head of the pools with the heavy nymphs and I just concentrated on the back ends where the slow and shallow waters were. As we both moved up river picking trout and grayling off I had a call off another mate Ceri Sweeney who I haven’t seen for some time asking if I was out fishing. Soon after,  Ceri met up with us and after having a chinwag, we all got to the fishing. It was far from easy and you had to work for the ones we managed to catch.

Im back on track with the blog  so please keep checking in on times to see what ive been up to. A few more posts about flies and where ive been fishing them will be up soon.

Finally a bit of fun on the dry

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While I was in work on friday counting down the hours I had a phone call of my mate telling me about the great day that he was having on the river with the dry. He went on to say about what the hatch was like and what was on, then with a bit of a giggle he told me his biggest at that time was a 3lb 3oz brown, jammy bugger 😦 Not something you want to hear while stuck in work is it! With this news I was already planning the trip for saturday morning and crossing my fingers that the weather would stay fine.

The fly box has been a little bare with dries lately because of the nymphing i’ve been doing throughout the winter months, so friday evening was spent tying a few dark olives patterns to cover the hatch that is mainly on at the moment. I did tie a few small gray dusters up and a few griffin gnats just in case they started to pick of smaller flies in the evening.

I was out the door just gone 7am in the morning and busting for it, little early for the hatches around here at the moment but I had a few places that I wanted to check out with the nymphs. I had a good idea of the time that the hatch would start because of my mate’s success on the day before so I had plenty of time to have a little fun with the nymphs. As normal I had two rods with me, one set up on the dry and the other with the french leader, this is so there is no messing around changing over and re-tying leaders and so on. In the past i’ve missed out on a few chances to catch the bigger trout feeding because of chopping and changing and as you know they don’t rise very often. This gives you that little bit more of an edge of catching a fish of a lifetime in my eyes and it has worked for me.

I finally started the morning in a nice long run that had lots of pocket water so the french leader was the best option. I set up and cut off around 3ft of stroft ABR and attached that to the indicator but this time I decided not to tie in a dropper because of the water condition, the rivers in south Wales running low and very clear so I wanted it to look as natural as possible. I tied a 2.5m copper head hares ear jig to the point and made my way up the run casting the nymph far away from me and keeping out of the trouts vision. In no time, the leader slipped away up river and then shortly after the trout slipped into the net and was quickly released after a quick poses.

The first run of the day and also the first fish of the day below

Another fine trout below that fell to the nymph while searching out the water in the photo above.

I spent a lot of time fishing the water quite hard, increasing the numbers slowly with the nymph and hoping to bump into something a little bigger but they didn’t seem to be there. It doesn’t really bother me catching a big fish but it’s always nice to land one now and again. At this time I started to see the odd olive flying past so I made my way to a little slower water to see if there was anything rising but I seen nothing for a good while, so I sat back and just watched this one pool knowing there was fish there. It was only a matter of time before they started to look up and see the olives,.

This was the pool below

Finally a trout broke the surface taking an olive, that was my cue to take the dry setup off my back and give it a whirl. Here is the pattern I used to imitate the large dark olive below and the first trout that was fooled by it of the day 🙂 Result!

Over the moon with the trout above, I went searching for trout rising and with that the bugging rod was taken down and it didn’t have a look in for the rest of the day and rightly so. Every pool that I came upon had a trout picking the olives off but only the one and it seemed they were the better size ones, I really wasn’t sure why but I didn’t think too much about it. As I moved up river scanning the water I could see that the olive hatch was reducing so my time was limited to find fish on the fin. Knowing that this was happening I jumped pool to pool looking but the rises were getting scarce. Time was getting on and I was thinking about calling it a day to go home and watch the wales match, where I was going to get out of the river just below a bridge, I walked out onto the bank and I seen a rise right tight to a large rock on the opposite back. The fish didn’t rise again so I just thought bugger it i’ll see if it’s still looking up, I cast the fly around 3ft above where the rise was and in seconds the trout took the fly and made a mad dash for cover, straight away I knew this was no tiddler. Seconds later the trout was tail walking and trying to chuck the hook but I had a good hook set and after a few mad dashed around the river the trout was to hand and a quick photo and then released to fight anOther day. Cracking result and what a trout to finish the day off.

The last and the biggest of the day below.

Windy old day on the river taff.

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Nice and early start again this morning but not the best of days for it with a heavy down stream wind making casting and presentation a right royal pain in the butt.

I wasnt the only one on the river nice and early though.

I was on the river bank nice and early and kind of thinking what kind of day it was going to be with the condition against me. I was carrying two rods as normal, one rod set up for nymphing and the other for klink and dink. Both methods were going to be a bit of fun to use in the wind but I was hoping that it would die down later on in the afternoon.  I’ve been fishing my normal spots over the last few weeks but today I took a different approach and fished the spots that are hard work to get at and taking full advantage of the lower water condition. I kept close to the banks fishing all the slack sides of the runs and where the wind wasnt making a ripple on the water. On times the gusts of wind would blow the indicator right out of the water and lift the nymphs right to the top, and with the klink it would shoot off like a pond skater and drag the nymph all over the shop. As I picked my way through a few spots I gradually started picking up a few small grayling and a few flighty trout that just wouldn’t stop jumping. As I was fishing quite close to me just beyond the rod tip, wading was a quiet affair and it was all slow-moving. It was working well so I stuck at it most of the day while the wind was blowing but as I thought it might it started to calm and it give me the chance to fish more open water. Getting the chance to fish the open water I set up the french leader, on the point I put a  2.8m hot spot jig and on the dropper a small pheasant tail hot spot. The nymph that was most effective throughout the daybelow.

I got myself into a nice looking run with a slow spot at the back-end and after only a few casts the indicator slipped away up river and me following with a steady lift, I was finally into one of the better ladies of the river. Thinking if there was one there, there had to be more so I fished it to its death but only managing a handful of trout and a few smaller grayling afterwards, most fish fell to the point fly and here is the first better size grayling of the day below.

The day was challenging and quite difficult but im a stubborn bugger and wouldn’t leave the river without a few better size grayling under my belt. As the day went on, without seeing any fly life of any sort I stuck to the nymphing and pulled the dry rod down to keep tangles to a minimum. Fishing become really slow in the backend of the runs in the afternoon so I moved into the heads of the runs searching out to see if I could find grayling on the feed. I walked into the head of the last run of the day pitching the nymphs high into the churning waters thinking i’d be lucky, but I was. I picked another hand full of grayling and trout from there, I finally called it a day and made the journey home. I’ll leave you with a few more photos of the fish that I manged to pick up throughout my day’s fishing and a few under water shots.

Making a quick exit below!

Nymphing on the River Taff

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I was out the door this morning by eight and in pursuit of the lovely grayling that swim the river Taff.

The river is just recovering from a heavy flood and I didn’t expect much because of past experiences of fishing after big floods but it didn’t bother me if I caught something or not, I just love being out on the water. The river bed has changed quite a lot and the shingle beds have moved all over the place, not a good thing for the reds im sure! But something good came out of it with a few nice holes and a few new runs scattered around the river making great spots for the grayling to ambush their passing prey or my nymphs:).

I had a play around with my video cam in one run that was fishing well and came up with this below.

I was fishing the french leader but not fishing it far away, more bugging really, fishing it just beyond the rod tip and keeping everything tight. I didnt even bother looking at the deeper waters I just concentrated on the water averaging from a few inches to about 2 ft.  Two nymphs as usual, on the point I was using a size 16 silver bead hares ear jig and on the dropper a copper head PT jig. I caught a good number of small grayling and one half decent grayling running on the 1lb mark, also a few nice size trout but I do wish someone would tell them that its out of season and they should stop taking my tasty nymphs 🙂 With the quality of the trout now at the moment it should be a cracking trout season. I’m so looking forward to hitting the small streams and one of my favourite rivers, the Rhondda!

The biggest grayling of the day below after unhooking.

The day turned out better than i thought it would so it was great.  Im really looking foward to the weekend so roll on friday to wet a line again!

Blustery old day on the taff

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Not the best conditions to fish the taff this morning with blustery wind blowing down river and as all anglers know, its a kiss of death and can be really hard work.

I was determined to fish this morning whatever the condition and whatever the outcome. With the weather, I only took the one rod for nymphing knowing  that presentation was going to be a nightmare and I could put my full concentration  on the one rod and not worry about anything else. The taff is still holding a good flow of water and has been for a good while now. I’m unable to fish my favourite spots and im just waiting on the day that it is possible. Today I set up the long leader with two 2.8 jigs. Due to the water I was fishing,  I had around 8ft to the point fly and a dropper around 20″ above that.  For the tippet material I was using 3lb  stroft ABR. I targeted the back-end of the pools and behind the boulders that are usually standing right out of the water, this makes good places for fish to pick off nymphs and not exert too much energy at the same time. Hot spots as I call them. Not easy to get the nymphs to fish natural today with the wind so I was keeping everything low and waiting for gaps in the wind so I could get the drift that I needed.  One of the places that I was talking about is shown below. I managed a few grayling but more trout than anything from behind this rock so I left them to it,

Working on up river looking for little eddies and pockets I manged to catch a trout well battled scared up by the cormerons, not looking its best but getting over the worse by the looks of him, it’s never nice seeing these fish scratched up and bite marks all over them. I had one small grayling with a perfect bite out of its tail aswell, check these out below.

Not a bad days fishing with lots of small grayling and a load of trout but as always its never about size for me it’s just getting out and enjoying something that I love.

Finally getting the chance to wet the feet.

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After a late night last night at the vice tying a few different patterns to play with, i checked the taff river levels to see how the old girl was running after the resent rains and after seeing the levels i was in with a chance to wet a line in the morning.

I didn’t get up early as usual, I woke around 8am and didn’t rush to get out, I checked the levels and it was okish and it didn’t alter that much overnight so it was more of just getting out really and looking for the shallow parts of the river where the fish would be sheltering from the heavy main flow.  As my streamflex 10ft 3wt  is still out of action, I set the french leader up on my greys 8ft 4wt,  I’ve done this in the past in tighter smaller rivers and got on fine but I was fishing a much bigger river so I just had to stick it out.  It wasn’t that bad really but I did miss my 10ft.  As normal I always carry two rods and the other rod was set up for the klink and dink. I didn’t see any fly life today or any movement on the water surface , the only movement I seen on the surface was a large salmon showing it’s head a few times and then disappearing back into the depths. After seeing the tourist playing around I got back to the nymphing. I managed a load of the yearling grayling and around the same amount in brown trout.This grayling was the biggest of the day below.

I was catching fish on both methods and all in about 2ft of water, I did walk in a little deeper water taking it easy and it was touch and go so I made a move back in the bank.  Last time I thought I would be ok out there, I took a dip and a fair swim :S Really dont want to do that again that’s for sure, Brown pants after that one. As the day went on, the fishing started to slow so I decided to check out what was moving around on the bottom, after a few funny looks off people wondering what I was doing I had a right mix of nymphs and shrimps and caddis cases and as i’ve done in the past I found an old can and used the bottom for a petri dish. Works quite well. The macro shots are not the best but not bad considering its on the bank side freehand.

Not a bad day and it was nice to get out and wet a line and wash a few troubles away. I’ll leave you with a few photos of the lovely day. Just before I leave I had a lovely christmas present off the wife:) I had an under water video camcorder so i’ll be making a few more short videos of my forays the next time im out, so please look in time to time and see what ive been up to.