Fed Up Of Tying Bugs & Dries For Next Season

Over the past couple of weeks i have been non stop tying up nymphs and Czech nymphs and am getting a little fed up with it all.  So have decided to start on the dries for the up and coming season when there will be March Browns, large Olives Massive brook Dunns on the water for trout of all sizes to feed on.

Below are a couple of my go to dry flies from last season and what i have been tying up lately.

Olives in Sizes 18 & 12

Size 16 Olive Paradun

Size 14 Quilled emerger & various sized quilled up rite dries ranging from 14-18


Various Coloured Klinkhammers in size 14




If you had to choose any of the above for your stream or river which would you favour??

Grayling Bugs

With the heavy rains and blustering winds no one has been able wet a line in a couple of weeks unless you are fishing the chalk streams which rarely ever flood.  So a lot of us have had to settle for second best and tie up a load of flies ready for when the river levels drop and are able to safely fish he rivers.  Here is a short video of a few flies which I hope to give a go when the time is rite.

Finally Some Rain...... And Fishing

I have not been out a great deal this year down to two reasons.  One down to work commitments and the the second that the rivers here in South Wales have not had a great deal of water making the river's and streams desperately low with hardly any fish feeding untill later on in the evenings when the spinner falls are hatching their eggs on the water and dying which at this time i am in work :(

However after the recent rains i gave the stream a couple of days to run off and get back to normal level.  The stream now is crystal clear and not a sign of alga or weed on the rocks with plenty of fly hatching in the fast ripply waters.  I was using my 7ft 3# Hardy Featherweight as i always do on my stream outings which is perfect for casting under over hanging tree's and branches on the small streams here in South Wales.  My fly of choice as always on the stream is an Olive Klinkhammer tied on a size 14 Kamasan B100 grub hook as i find that the fish are able to take the hook more easier than the conventional klinkhammer hook aswell as the hook is not as heavy.

Any ways back to the fishing :)  I started off a little early in the day around 10:00am and the water was still a little cool from the night but i could see the odd rise or two in the pocket waters.   I fish a fairly short line around 10 yards at the maximum as i have found that on small streams if you have too much line out and you strike at a rise more than most of the time that fish will get free of the hook due to slack line.  I managed to fish and catch fish behind big boulders and over hanging tree's But then spooked all the fish in the long calm pools (As i always do).  As you can see in the image i was at the end of the run and i managed to spook the entire run with a bow wave.

Aafter catching a good number of fish i decided to have a look around a couple of runs and underneath rocks in the spots which have already fished.  I noticed a good number of stone loaches and an abundunce of small fry which i s a good sign of how healthy the stream is becoming after it got polluted by Welsh Water a number of years ago and the hard work done by South East Wales River Trust .  I am for sure going to fish the stream a lot more before the season is out when i get the time off (even for an hour or two).

Here are a couple of pictures of the day.  I hope you enjoy them.

well where do i start.  with work, family and other commitments i Havant really been able to get many fishing days on the calender so share with everyone.  but i have managed to do some sort of fishing on the local stream, river Taff and River Usk.  I have fished the Main river on the upper reaches of theTaff mostly but not to much success with the low conditions of late and clear water the fish are just not responding very well and are spooked very easily.  However on the lower reaches with there has been some rather large brown trout being caught by Terry Bromwell , Sion Lewis and Kieron Jenkins
Terry's monster trout from the beginning of the season

One of Kierons monster early season fish from the River Taff

On the River Usk i fished it when the river had a little of water on it.  There was plenty of fly life about but hardly anything rising or interested in our dries or nymphs in the main runs.  Myself and Lee Evans fished mostly all the main pools on the Mardy but it wasn't until we started nymphing some pocked water we started to nail into some really good fish (5 fish in one pocket) which saved the day from a blank for both of us.  My biggest fish from the day was a very nice 16 inch Trout caught on a 3ml with a silver tungsten bead  PTN jig :)

As to the stream it hasn't been fishing very well this year so far with the harsh spring/summer which we has been having with very little or nothing caught at all at times.  There has been plenty of fly life such as brook dunns, pale wateries, large dark olives, cainis etc etc mostly if not all fish have been having a free passage down stream.  But i suppose if there is that much activity above the water you can just imagine how much is going on under the water so why would a trout want to rise to a fly.  However things have been looking up in the past week or two with a few being caught on the dry and a few yellow may dunns and may flies coming off the water so hopefully it will bring the fish up feeding more prolific even though it is still pretty cold even now in May with snow on the hill tops.

Also in my spare time i have been experimenting with cdc flies and have tied up a small collection which have caught me a few nice trout so far this season as i am experimenting with different variations and styles of dry flies :)




The rivers have now had a good bit of rain and are running off a spate as i write this post so hopefully the fishing trout & salmon will pick up a little :)

Good Start To The New Season :)

Well the new 2013 trout season is here at last.  The long cold morning, frosty mornings Chasing winter Grayling are gone and rising golden trout are on every ones minds.  After spending many hours in my little claustrophobic cubourd tying many flies for the new season I ended up spending my first day of the 2013 trout season on my usual haunt on the upper river.  My Pal Mostyn was accompanying me on the river and we were both fishing klink & dink.  It was all a little slow,  no fly life on the wing and no trout rising.  We both fished a couple of pools and fast runs but not a sausage.  By this time it was later on in the day and i had to go to work soon so i just sat back and told Mostyn that i would just watch him for a little and let him have the last couple of pools.  He was fishing at the bottom of a pool which was dead calm but had enough pace on it to make his flies go down river at a nice pace without any drag.  His second cast and his klinkhammer slowly slid under the surface.  Thinking he was just snagged on the bottom he didn't strike as if he was into a fish he just lifted his rod slightly.  Next thing he knew his rod was bending and a massive fish leaped into the air and trying its best to head off down river.  At first i thought that he had hooked into a small salmon kelt but after watching him fight the fish and it coming to the surface a few times you could see that it was a huge trout.  After a few minutes battle the trout was safely in the landing net unhooked and a quick picture taken.  I wouldn't like to give an accurate weight of the fish as it was very very long and slim.  However my biggest fish in the 2012 trout season was 23 inches and this fish was much bigger so id give it 3 1/2lb and possible 4lb+ when it reforms condition.  After seeing that massive trout i had to leave the river for the day to go to work but i managed to see a beauty of the river aswel as catching a small trout myself :)  (Much smaller)
Mostyns MASSIVE trout


Later that day i had a phone call off a mate Sion Lewis/Lewy which had just recently joined the club water which i fish asking me to show him around.  Obviously I couldn't say no as i had booked the day off work.  We started off a bit later in the around 9:30am.  We were again fishing klink & Dink as the water levels are painfully low and clear so we wouldn't be able to fish nymphs very well in them conditions.  I took him to the same runs which i fished the day before as i knew that there was more fish there just we didn't catch them the day before.  There was still frost on the ground when we hit the river so i knew that it wasn't going to be easy fishing even thought there was quite a few LDO's on the wing so we were a bit confident we were going to hit into something.  We fished every single pool, pocket and crease and the trout were just not interested.  All them LDO'S floated down river were getting a free pass as the trout were just not switched on.  I was getting a little worried thinking that Sion was thinking that there was no fish in the river as this went on for a couple of hours until it warmed up at around 11:30.  There was a clear sign that there was a a lot more LDO'S coming onto the wing and the trout were taking notice as you could make out the odd sip and splashy rise.  Where we were fishing it was wide enough for both of us to fish with a big island in the middle of the river so i took one side and Sion took the other.  A couple of casts in on the klink & dink and i was into a nice looking trout which took my dry fly :)

And a couple of casts late a little further up river in the oxygenated water behind boulders i was straight into another and on the dry too :)

With Sion seeing me catch these two fantastic fish he asked me kindly (haha) if he could fish the rest of the run which i was fishing so i let him carry on.  He spotted a nice fish rise a little further up river.  He placed his flies a little further than where the fish had rose first.  The fish rose to his fly but when he struck there was nothing on the end.  Luckily the fish didn't feel the hook as the next cast he nailed it on the dry too

Sion had his first fish on his new water and he soon got into the swing of things as he caught another fish afterwards on his LDO quill pattern Which i will be copying by the way ;) and as soon as you knew it was time to go home.  However a great day fishing in great surrounding, company and fish.  Not a lot more you can need.

New Season, New flies

With the new trout season fast approaching and everyone itching to get out onto the rivers and small streams after blue and red spotted beauties.  My old box at the moment is full of big heavy flies ranging from 3ml up to 5.5ml nymphs for the grayling in winter and some are either too heavy for the water which i fish for trout or too over dressed and flashy.   so i had decided to do myself a new fly box so that when the time comes (March 3rd) i know that ill be ready so for the past couple of weeks i have been slowly making this new box.  One side with nymphs from 2ml up to 3ml for the main upper river and on the opposite side dry flies for the small streams which i use single dry fly or maybe early in the season a duo/klink & dink.

I hope your boxes are ready and i hope you enjoy :)

A few 2ml & 2.5ml nymphs

A few bigger 2.8ml & 3ml nymphs

Still not finished on the dries yet but here are a few Olive, Black and Tan klinkhammers aswell as a couple of cdc & elks.