Three Welsh Rivers

Three Welsh Rivers

Tracy&James | Sunday, 24 April 2022

Fishing rivers does have its ups and downs, thankfully no dunkings recently though. With the slightly warmer, sunny weather the UK has been experiencing recently, we have been fishing a few times. The first few trips were on new rivers for us, in South Wales, as James reported last weekend. I have never seen so many flies being swept over a river and also not seen a matching series of rises. That trip I didn’t catch a fish, but missed the few rises I had to my dry flies. When we then went to our home river, the Dee near Corwen, I was much more successful. I started on one of our favourite riffles on this beat and with James tackling up on the bank, I quickly had a take to my Klink and a lovely little grayling to my hand. A few photos taken and then he went further along the beat and I carried on fishing.

I had many takes, some missed, a few played and lost. Moving slightly upstream I cast and my fly landed lightly and was quickly sipped gently down by a fish. If I’d blinked I would have missed it; no concentric circles from the rise as it was so subtle, the fly just seemed to disappear. I struck and found myself hooked into a beautiful brown who took line off my reel and fought well. I was so pleased when I finally got him in my net, but then realised I hadn’t put my camera in my pocket! James was out of sight, and the camera was too far away, so after unhooking and admiring the colouration, the brownie was released without a photo.

I was so happy after this fish that I could have just sat and relaxed on the bank, but the rises started again and I went back and caught another grayling. On finding James I fished a few other spots and caught more grayling but sadly no more brownies, especially as by now I’d put my waterproof camera in my pocket – typical!

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The only other fish worthy of a mention, was a good sized grayling that had been rising frequently just above a riffle. The water was moving fast so the cast was tricky to get the fly in the right spot to cover where he was rising. I had seen James cast there earlier in the day and not get a rise to his dry. However I thought it was worth a try. I managed to get a cast where the fly landed perfectly above where the fish had been rising and it took my fly. The water was running fast so it took quite some time to get the fish to the net; I could feel it fighting hard in the flow, shaking its head. It was a lovely sized grayling and rather than take a photo, I just made sure he was released quickly.

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Regardless of the fish I catch on these trips, I love being by the river and enjoying the countryside views, although it is rather nice when I can report catching a few gorgeous fish. With the predicted east wind, this weekend seemed unlikely to be good for fishing, so we went casting instead, however our usual casting field was too swirly to practice. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, or if not, we’ll just go for a walk along a river.

Whatever you are doing this weekend, tight lines and enjoy

Cheers

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