It was good to spend the day with Richard at Trostry on the river Usk. Although any one who know the Usk will be aware of how fickle she can be especially early season.

Surprisingly even after a couple of days nice weather there was very little fly life on the water and the water temperature still seemed very low.

Richard tracking his flies downstream

One of my favourite ways of fishing early season is upstream spiders so we set of for the faster water but the fishing here is better for a right handed caster and Richard being left handed was struggling a bit. It soon became apparent that Richard was not really enjoying himself and as fishing is about having fun we decided to ring the changes and move up to the top of the beat. We also changed method opting to fish the duo.

We fished for a while missing one take, the fish took just as the line was lifted of for the next cast and the hook was not set well as there was little room to strike, oh well that’s fishing!!

Richard decided to sit on the bank for a smoke and was kind enough to allow me a few casts. This was useful chance to try the set up and see why where not catching. Sometimes when coaching a beginners it can be difficult to tell if they are not catching because of presentation or because the set up. After a few casts it became apparent that it was the set up.

So on with a longer dropper and a heavier nymph under an even bushier dry fly and after a couple of cast it was fish on and I got a picture of it too.

A brown trout in the net

Now I try to learn some thing myself every time I go out on the river and today’s lesson was if you try to a take picture on your posh new phone it will come out rubbish because you will be more concerned with keeping the phone dry than getting a good picture , back to the camera