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.
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