July 2nd 2008

Fished on the Monnow today at Skenfrith with PD. Most of the day we covered different aspects of nymph fishing. Upstream single nymph and a bit of Czech Nymph.
In the afternoon we fished spiders downstream for a while.The river was carrying a bit of co lour from the rain the day before. The fishing was interrupted for a while by a deluge that started to co lour the river while we were watching.

Hatch wise there was only a few flies coming off in dribs and drabs. Mostly the usual suspect, Yellow Mays, SDO and a few late Mayflies

Frank

4th July 2008

Arrived at the Monnow this morning thinking that the river may be carrying a little coloured water. Hmm!! Bit of an understatement.

Not really holding a lot of extra water though as the picture below shows

Frank

24th July 2008

CLA Game Fair at this weekend at Blenhiem Palace.
I will be helping out with the junior casting tuition on the GAIA stand, located in the fishing village.

Drop by and say hello.

Frank

28th July 2008

Just spent a a couple of very enjoyable days at the CLA Game fair. Most of the weekend was taken up with helping out on the Junior casting clinic.

Over the course of the weekend myself and the rest of the G.A.I.A team helped just over a thousand people with their fly casting. Around about half of these where juniors.We had fly anglers covering every level from absolute beginners to old hands trying to improver their fly casting skills. This included one or two famous faces.

This really left little time for enjoying the rest of the show. I did manage to get around a few of the stalls and take a few nice fly fishing rods out for a cast or two.

All in all a great weekend

Frank

29th July 2008

Today was Wild Trout Trust day. I had donated a days guided fly fishing to the WTT annual auction this year. This was won by a chap who wanted me to come to his syndicate beat on the middle Usk just upstream of Pant-y-Goitre bridge. The brief for the day was to give him a fresh perspective on a beat that he had been fishing since he was around ten years old.
On arriving we had a good walk over the beat while I asked him a few questions about how he would approach each piece of water and what he usual catches where.

We then went and looked a couple of the faster sections of water where his reported catch returns where a bit lower than other sections. After a bit of a lesson on fishing wet flies upstream during which I managed to hook a good sized brown trout.It was JH's turn to try out fishing upsteam spiders. As he fishied up the rest of the run he managed to hook into another couple of fish and even though he did not manage to land them it was enough to give him the confidence that is needed to try fishing a new style without the guidance of a fly fishing instructor.

Frank

30th July 2008

Due to fish the Usk at Bridge meadow today. However when I arrived the river way up and coloured.

31st July 2008

Today I was taking Irfon for a days river fishing on the river Irfon for his 30th birthday. Arrived at the river to find it peat stained rather than coloured up t none the less fishable.
Fishing was challenging but enjoyable. it was Irfons first time river fishing so we cover downstream fishing in the morning and a bit of upstream in the afternoon. we had a couple of brown trout and plenty of salmon parr all of which were safely returned. In the afternoon we had a nice trout on a dry fly not bad for an absolute beginner in tough conditions.

Frank

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