As April starts I start looking forward to the hatches off Olives getting more frequent and also the start of the Grannom hatches as these are often what brings the rivers to life for the year. But with the high wind we have been having it has made fishing of the surface a very patchy sport indeed…

Today saw me making another visit to the Lower Stanton beat on the Honndu, I really like this beat a lot.

The first pool I came to had a fish rising right on the far bank. I sat for a while watching the water to see if could spot what it was rising to.
As I suspected the munch of the day seemed to be olives. With that in mind on went a Greenwells parachute. After a cast or two the fly drift just right and up came a monster and gulped it down.

A Beautiful Juvenile Brown Trout

What beauty. A real pleasure to see . The quality of this fishery and its piscatorial inhabitants are all down to the people involved in the Monnow Fisheries Association for all the hard work they have done in the last few years bringing these rivers back to their former glory.

Thanks and well done guys.

Alas that was the last of the rising fish all day but not the last of the days fish.

A trout in the hand.....

A lovely fish and one of a few from this section of the beat.

Worth a cast, a lovely pool full of Brown Trout

The best fish of the day came from above the weir and was well recovered from spawning

A Monnow Trout in all its glory