Frank and I met up at 10am near the ancient stone bridge over the Usk at Llangynidr.  The river is wide at this point, with two islands splitting the river into many different currents, and broken up with rocks. Frank spent some time leaning over the bridge studying the river below, and it wasn’t long before he’d pointed out half a dozen rising trout feeding or just below the surface.  This section of the river, I learnt, produces amongst the largest wild brown trout on the entire Usk, hard fighting fish up to 4 or 5lb, honed by the strong currents.
Appetite whetted, I couldn’t wait to tackle up and get wading.  But first Frank showed me how to tie a ‘New Zealand’ set up, which he’d found most effective for this type of river.  Consisting of a conspicuous dry fly at the end of a 12ft leader, a medium weighted nymph is tied to about 2 feet of nylon directly off the hook of the dry fly.  The dry fly acts both as lure and indicator, either catching fish in its own right or slipping below the surface like a float when a fish feeding beneath the surface grabs the nymph.

Having tackled up and memorised the positions of the rising fish, we left the bridge and crept out in our chest waders into the current.  The first fish had been holding position just upstream of a large rock which broke the surface, so we made our way to within 30 feet of the rock, then knelt down to hide ourselves from the wary trout.  After a couple of casts, the fly landed in the perfect position just upstream of the rock.  There was a flash of dull gold beneath the surface as the trout turned to take the nymph and the Klinkhammer disappeared.  Strike!! and the rod bent double as a large trout dived for the cover of an undercut rock nearby.  Just managed to keep the trout away from the shelter of the overhang and a couple of minutes later a beautifully dappled Usk two pounder was in the net. After admiring it and posing for photos, we slipped it back into the current and off it went to fight another day.

Throughout the day another two good fish, about the same weight as the first one, took the nymph and were brought to the net.  Rainfall has been unusually low here this Spring, so the water level was at least four inches below levels usual for this time of year.  However, that allowed us to wade much further out than usual, to get within casting distance of previously inaccessible places, some of which held good sized and very obliging trout!

A day of instruction with Frank was definitely worth it; by the end I’d finally managed to correct some errors in my casting technique, improved fly presentation, 3earnt how to mend the line, and had a lot of fun into the bargain.  All on a beautiful river in magnificent surroundings!  Recommended!

Keith Barker

One of the fish caugh on the day