Wye and Usk Foundation near Presteigne
I managed to squeeze in quick couple of hours on my drive back to Bristol. I think (Uncle) James and perhaps Grandpa used to fish the Lugg somewhere round these parts way back when. The stream here is full of fairly classic riffles and glides with some very deep pot pools and quite calm stretches. The water had probably been freshened up a bit by the heavy showers of the last week or so and whilst still running what looked to be quite low it had a tinge of colour to it which boded well for some sport. Despite some little grey flies (I really must brush up on my entomology) coming off I didn’t see a singe rise on my walk downstream. This only served to dampen my new water optimism a tad as I tacked up with now fairly de-rigueur New Zealand style dry and trailing weighted nymph. This being a fairly short trip on my way home I found myself struggling to relax and actually fish rather than mechanically going through the motions. I was thus very glad to hook a lively fish on a quick and shallow run. Initially I had to horse it out from under a sunken tree with some side strain. The rod being low then immediately led to the line catching under a slatey piece of rock from which the fish made good it escape. This was one of those occasions when you find yourself striking without really being sure why. Some say that it is some kind of sixth sense kicking in. All I do know is that if you get this feeling it should be acted on. In fact I find that I’m quite often tightening in to a fish without really being conscious o fit. When all is going well it’s the same kind of unthinking alertness which I sometime used to get when playing Ultimate Frisbee well or even more rarely when scoring a goal at hockey. I suppose some sports people would call it being in the zone or experiencing alpha waves in your noddle.
This near success allowed me to relax a little and as it turned out perhaps a tad too much. Squeezing a cast in to a very overgrown pool with willow (?) fronds draping the water I was day dreaming too much when a nice fish flashed out from it's lair to take the fly and I missed the take as the fish turned back back in to its hidey hole as quickly as it came out. Round the next bend I encountered a fish rising just above a fallen log making a mini waterfall. With no option other than to approach from downstream I cast above the log for what was to be a foot long drift at most. Sure enough the leader shot away and I hooked a plump little 6” brownie that manage a few little cartwheeling jumps as I pulled him over the log and it's mini water fall. The fish was quiet distinct from its upland cousins and certainly fatter than than the Claerwen fish from the day before.
Monday, 19 July 2010
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Wild and wind-swept Claerwen
Saturday 17th July
Today saw me making the drive over from Ian, Ceri and little Ted’s to Rhayader to fish at Claerwen high up in the hills above the Elan Valley. The princely sum of six English pounds was enough for Daisy Powell of the eponymously named newsagents to give me a day ticket with a quick comment of ‘Claerwen’s been fishing well!” Rather more worryingly, for it is mostly the solitude I enjoy, she also assured me that plenty had been fishing up there. I arrived at the upper car park to find a westerly hooly blowing straight down the west to east running reservoir. I decided to yomp up the southern side of the water for about 45 mins which was enough to take me probably three quarter’s of the way up the water. The plan was then to make my way back down towards the dam. During the walk I had a mini d’oh moment when I realised that my fly vest being packed for a trip on the Hampshire Avon, I had forgotten my traditional wet flies box. It wasn’t until I looked in my gold head and nymphs box that I was relieved to find that enough cross-pollination had happened to allow a few bushy traditional patterns to find their way on to today’s trip. Tackling up with a three fly cast I began a few short exploratory casts alongside the bank with a very strong west wind rushing from my left to right. We all know that the left to right nature of the wind makes the cast and walk method so nice and manageable for exploring these wild waters. Almost immediately I was missing the lightening quick takes so typical of these little wild brownies. Steeling myself to concentrate harder it was not until after I had missed four or five more takes that I found myself attached to a fish. Almost immediately a peat stained golden flash very close in to the bank revealed what looked like a sizeable fish. In truth the fish had slammed in to my fly so hard that I probably would have struggled not to end up being attached to it. It wasn’t really making any runs but was using its shoulders to plough up and down only ten feet or so out from the rocky bank. The 7 1\2 ‘ 3\4 weight rod was showing a pleasing bend and getting a much better fight out if the fish than the heavier rod and line I would have had to use if I was casting in to the wind.
In the adrenalin packed early moments of the fight I managed to end up in the water after stepping on to a soft bit of sandy beach that had been pushed up by the waves and which gave way as soon as I set foot on it. With the ensuing slacker line I was probably lucky to stay in touch with the fish. Soon enough the fish was ready to be beached. It had taken the top dropper Bibio which to me is pretty much the epitome of the leggy, buggy, bushy, black patterns that always seem to do well on these upland waters. It also has that flash of red which seems to make it a more attractive morsel than some other dowdier patterns. The fish went 13 ½" which for this type of wild water is a very good fish. (This was measured later at home rather than by the measuring ruler I keep on promising myself I will paint on the rod’s blank above the rod handle. And yes I do occasionally keep a wild fish for the pot. As long as it is only occasional I don’t think this does too much harm. On the whole a pan sized fish is the best eating and if I need some fish for the barbecue I will go and catch some rainbows if I can. Virtually all my WBT go back and it does feel great to use a barbless hook, nurse them back to life if need be, and then to watch them swim away healthily if a little but sulkily).
Later, on my proud explanation to Ceri that this was quite a large fish she was to respond with “How much skill is there in catching a large fish as opposed top smaller ones?” After a quick bit of on the hoof musing I was able to reply with that it was probably a fifty\fifty mix of pot luck and skill with the skill component mainly being down to good presentation being required to fool the bigger trout which had become big by being cleverer and more discerning than their younger and smaller cousins. How much truth there is in this I’m not really sure.
The rest of the day was spent step and casting my way down the southern flank of the water. I lost count of the number of fish I landed (perhaps around twenty?) and really have no idea of how many very quick takes I missed either through day dreaming or just through them being too quick for my reflexes. On the whole the fish were not very far out and they tended to either come to the top dropper or the mini gold head on the point. A daddy long leg pattern proved to be top pattern either being taken dry before the leader had sunk or stripped back fairly quickly just sub surface. Many of the fish were the 5 or 6 inchers typical of this type of fairly infertile water with a few 9” fish too, though none any where near as large as my first fish of the day. Sport definitely tailed off as the day grew brighter and brighter from it’s fairly mizzly start. The fish seemed to be fairly evenly spread out with sheltered and calm bays providing nearly as many fish as the wind and wave swept rocky points. The only folk I saw were a couple of mountain bikers and some noisy trail bike riders all of whom were over on the far side using the farm track which skirts the shore. The southern side of the reservoir has only a few sheep tracks though on this visit the water was so low that I could walk easily round on the mainly rocky shoreline. A bird of prey which I think was probably a kite did periodic fly-bys on the hill side above me. It seemed to be fairly unfazed by my presence.
I just love this style of fishing. Some river fishers who are used to targeting individual rinsing fish seem to look down their noses at what they see as the chuck and chance it nature of this fishing. I love the roving rhythm of the day and just being in such a wild and wind swept place. The water has never been stocked so all the fish are as wild and beautiful as they come and have almost certainly never been caught before. They are forced to look up for their food so they are normally fairly free rising unless it happens to be a blue scorcher of a day when the sport will probably be confined to dusk.
On driving back through Rhayader I was amused to see the aftermath of that day's carnival festivities with fancy dressed and dollied up revellers spilling out of the pubs on to the street. All this was certainly a million miles away from the stark beauty of the windswept and wild Claerwen.
Today saw me making the drive over from Ian, Ceri and little Ted’s to Rhayader to fish at Claerwen high up in the hills above the Elan Valley. The princely sum of six English pounds was enough for Daisy Powell of the eponymously named newsagents to give me a day ticket with a quick comment of ‘Claerwen’s been fishing well!” Rather more worryingly, for it is mostly the solitude I enjoy, she also assured me that plenty had been fishing up there. I arrived at the upper car park to find a westerly hooly blowing straight down the west to east running reservoir. I decided to yomp up the southern side of the water for about 45 mins which was enough to take me probably three quarter’s of the way up the water. The plan was then to make my way back down towards the dam. During the walk I had a mini d’oh moment when I realised that my fly vest being packed for a trip on the Hampshire Avon, I had forgotten my traditional wet flies box. It wasn’t until I looked in my gold head and nymphs box that I was relieved to find that enough cross-pollination had happened to allow a few bushy traditional patterns to find their way on to today’s trip. Tackling up with a three fly cast I began a few short exploratory casts alongside the bank with a very strong west wind rushing from my left to right. We all know that the left to right nature of the wind makes the cast and walk method so nice and manageable for exploring these wild waters. Almost immediately I was missing the lightening quick takes so typical of these little wild brownies. Steeling myself to concentrate harder it was not until after I had missed four or five more takes that I found myself attached to a fish. Almost immediately a peat stained golden flash very close in to the bank revealed what looked like a sizeable fish. In truth the fish had slammed in to my fly so hard that I probably would have struggled not to end up being attached to it. It wasn’t really making any runs but was using its shoulders to plough up and down only ten feet or so out from the rocky bank. The 7 1\2 ‘ 3\4 weight rod was showing a pleasing bend and getting a much better fight out if the fish than the heavier rod and line I would have had to use if I was casting in to the wind.
In the adrenalin packed early moments of the fight I managed to end up in the water after stepping on to a soft bit of sandy beach that had been pushed up by the waves and which gave way as soon as I set foot on it. With the ensuing slacker line I was probably lucky to stay in touch with the fish. Soon enough the fish was ready to be beached. It had taken the top dropper Bibio which to me is pretty much the epitome of the leggy, buggy, bushy, black patterns that always seem to do well on these upland waters. It also has that flash of red which seems to make it a more attractive morsel than some other dowdier patterns. The fish went 13 ½" which for this type of wild water is a very good fish. (This was measured later at home rather than by the measuring ruler I keep on promising myself I will paint on the rod’s blank above the rod handle. And yes I do occasionally keep a wild fish for the pot. As long as it is only occasional I don’t think this does too much harm. On the whole a pan sized fish is the best eating and if I need some fish for the barbecue I will go and catch some rainbows if I can. Virtually all my WBT go back and it does feel great to use a barbless hook, nurse them back to life if need be, and then to watch them swim away healthily if a little but sulkily).
Later, on my proud explanation to Ceri that this was quite a large fish she was to respond with “How much skill is there in catching a large fish as opposed top smaller ones?” After a quick bit of on the hoof musing I was able to reply with that it was probably a fifty\fifty mix of pot luck and skill with the skill component mainly being down to good presentation being required to fool the bigger trout which had become big by being cleverer and more discerning than their younger and smaller cousins. How much truth there is in this I’m not really sure.
The rest of the day was spent step and casting my way down the southern flank of the water. I lost count of the number of fish I landed (perhaps around twenty?) and really have no idea of how many very quick takes I missed either through day dreaming or just through them being too quick for my reflexes. On the whole the fish were not very far out and they tended to either come to the top dropper or the mini gold head on the point. A daddy long leg pattern proved to be top pattern either being taken dry before the leader had sunk or stripped back fairly quickly just sub surface. Many of the fish were the 5 or 6 inchers typical of this type of fairly infertile water with a few 9” fish too, though none any where near as large as my first fish of the day. Sport definitely tailed off as the day grew brighter and brighter from it’s fairly mizzly start. The fish seemed to be fairly evenly spread out with sheltered and calm bays providing nearly as many fish as the wind and wave swept rocky points. The only folk I saw were a couple of mountain bikers and some noisy trail bike riders all of whom were over on the far side using the farm track which skirts the shore. The southern side of the reservoir has only a few sheep tracks though on this visit the water was so low that I could walk easily round on the mainly rocky shoreline. A bird of prey which I think was probably a kite did periodic fly-bys on the hill side above me. It seemed to be fairly unfazed by my presence.
I just love this style of fishing. Some river fishers who are used to targeting individual rinsing fish seem to look down their noses at what they see as the chuck and chance it nature of this fishing. I love the roving rhythm of the day and just being in such a wild and wind swept place. The water has never been stocked so all the fish are as wild and beautiful as they come and have almost certainly never been caught before. They are forced to look up for their food so they are normally fairly free rising unless it happens to be a blue scorcher of a day when the sport will probably be confined to dusk.
On driving back through Rhayader I was amused to see the aftermath of that day's carnival festivities with fancy dressed and dollied up revellers spilling out of the pubs on to the street. All this was certainly a million miles away from the stark beauty of the windswept and wild Claerwen.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Chesil overnighter
July 12th-13th
Fired up by reports of dawn bass on Chesil on Henry Gilbey’s blog Chris and I arrived at the Abbotsbury car park fully charged with bassy thoughts. An azure blue calm day heightened our anticipation as we trudged along behind the shingle bank towards the old concrete defence works known as the Dragon’s Teeth mark. (Reminder to self: pack light next time and take less leads). True to form I managed to quickly get out a fully baited rig while we set up camp (good to get a bait in the water) while Chris took a slightly more leisurely approach to getting himself ready for the day and night ahead. Soon enough Chris whacked out a string of feathers with a Dexter wedge accompanied by “I’ll just get the account opened with a few mackerel”. Little were we to know that it wouldn’t be until the next morning that we were to get anything of note and that would only be a half a dozen or so mackerel.
With spring tide around 7pm we were not too concerned or surprised with the lack of day time action to our various feathers, lures and baits large and small. Come evening time nothing much was happening either with the sea seemingly devoid of life. A wandering lure fisherman confirmed that despite his mate’s recent Friday evening bass that things had indeed been slow locally. I even resorted to the fly rod for a while and whilst I was happy with my casting not a tug was had. I really want to catch a mackerel on the fly. As Chris said it would probably be like being attached to a mini turbo charged tuna- another time perhaps.
Darkness brought a little more action with me retrieving a poor cod which had its guts ripped out by the omnipresent crabs and Chris getting a strong bite which didn’t materialise in to anything. To top things off the spider crabs were regularly snipping through our hook lengths. The plan was to get a couple of hour’s darkness fishing in before rising at dawn to latch on to the bass which were just bound to be around! And so to bed. In one of those tiny flip up tents. Turned out to be ok really- nice and easy up on the beach and just about big enough.
Well we were up by 6.30 which meant we missed dawn by at least two hours. Still nowt about. I valiantly kept on whacking out the feathers and was at least pretty chuffed with my pseudo pendulum casting. Eventually I managed to get around 8 sizeable mackerel all at maximum range. We even chopped one up to have some impromptu sashimi in true Hugh Furry-Windowsill style. Absolutely gorgeous with a bit of wasabi and soy. The rest tasted just beautiful with lemon and oil cooked on the bbq in foil.
I do love spending time at Chesil. I’m not quite sure I can explain why, and I’m not even certain that it’s a good thing to dissect the way one feels about a place. It might be because it reminds of the shingle beaches of Eastbourne, where I grew up. More likely it is the basic elemental nature of such a place. Whatever it is, it is sure to draw us back. Perhaps next time later in the year the night will be longer and we might actually make it up for first light. Who knows, maybe we’ll even be lucky enough to draw a magical silver spiky bass up the beach.
Fired up by reports of dawn bass on Chesil on Henry Gilbey’s blog Chris and I arrived at the Abbotsbury car park fully charged with bassy thoughts. An azure blue calm day heightened our anticipation as we trudged along behind the shingle bank towards the old concrete defence works known as the Dragon’s Teeth mark. (Reminder to self: pack light next time and take less leads). True to form I managed to quickly get out a fully baited rig while we set up camp (good to get a bait in the water) while Chris took a slightly more leisurely approach to getting himself ready for the day and night ahead. Soon enough Chris whacked out a string of feathers with a Dexter wedge accompanied by “I’ll just get the account opened with a few mackerel”. Little were we to know that it wouldn’t be until the next morning that we were to get anything of note and that would only be a half a dozen or so mackerel.
With spring tide around 7pm we were not too concerned or surprised with the lack of day time action to our various feathers, lures and baits large and small. Come evening time nothing much was happening either with the sea seemingly devoid of life. A wandering lure fisherman confirmed that despite his mate’s recent Friday evening bass that things had indeed been slow locally. I even resorted to the fly rod for a while and whilst I was happy with my casting not a tug was had. I really want to catch a mackerel on the fly. As Chris said it would probably be like being attached to a mini turbo charged tuna- another time perhaps.
Darkness brought a little more action with me retrieving a poor cod which had its guts ripped out by the omnipresent crabs and Chris getting a strong bite which didn’t materialise in to anything. To top things off the spider crabs were regularly snipping through our hook lengths. The plan was to get a couple of hour’s darkness fishing in before rising at dawn to latch on to the bass which were just bound to be around! And so to bed. In one of those tiny flip up tents. Turned out to be ok really- nice and easy up on the beach and just about big enough.
Well we were up by 6.30 which meant we missed dawn by at least two hours. Still nowt about. I valiantly kept on whacking out the feathers and was at least pretty chuffed with my pseudo pendulum casting. Eventually I managed to get around 8 sizeable mackerel all at maximum range. We even chopped one up to have some impromptu sashimi in true Hugh Furry-Windowsill style. Absolutely gorgeous with a bit of wasabi and soy. The rest tasted just beautiful with lemon and oil cooked on the bbq in foil.
I do love spending time at Chesil. I’m not quite sure I can explain why, and I’m not even certain that it’s a good thing to dissect the way one feels about a place. It might be because it reminds of the shingle beaches of Eastbourne, where I grew up. More likely it is the basic elemental nature of such a place. Whatever it is, it is sure to draw us back. Perhaps next time later in the year the night will be longer and we might actually make it up for first light. Who knows, maybe we’ll even be lucky enough to draw a magical silver spiky bass up the beach.
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