The River Angler

At last we were heading back to the beautiful valleys of Wales.  We love this area of Mid Wales.  The scenery is breathtaking, the people are very friendly and helpful and the fishing can be amazing.

As you are aware the weather in the run up to Mid February was looking a bit iffy, to say the least.  We had heavy rain followed by a couple of spells of fairly substantial snow fall and then rain again.  The end result was a lot of snow melt and more flooded rivers.  We were beginning to get a little worried that our planned trip could well be a disaster.  Luckily the fishing Gods smiled down on us and the conditions stabilised about a week prior to our departure.  We kept a close eye on the forecast (which was looking pretty good the closer the trip came) and the river levels seemed to be improving all of the time.  It seemed this time around we were at last due a good week.

The Wye

The usual array of tackle was loaded into the car, trailer and roof box.  The more space we seem to have the more we fill it up with additional gear.  We never quite seem to have enough room.  Still we were on our way.  The M25 and M4 were as delightful as ever, at times they appear to be Europe’s finest car parks!  We had our traditional stop at Membury Services for a hearty breakfast.  So after re-mortgaging the house and a double dose of indigestion tablets to try and keep it all down, we began the final leg to Powys.  It was slow going unfortunately and after being on the road for about 6 hours, we eventually arrived at our destination!

We were keen to get down to the river.  We had our fingers crossed that the river would be in good sorts and I’m pleased to say we were not disappointed.  The Wye was at a good level, probably slightly up and a good colour for grayling fishing.  As we walked down to the river the low clouds shrouded the surrounding hills in mist and we could have almost been in the Himalayas.  The place takes on an almost mystical look when the conditions are like this and I was secretly hoping that the Dalai Lama might turn up and bless me with a mythical ability to catch a prodigious amount of very large grayling.  Sadly he didn’t show up and neither did the very large grayling.

The Welsh Hills

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but February can be a bit tricky for grayling.  From around mid to late Feb they start to shoal up, so you have to find the shoals to get a decent catch of fish.  On this first day all of the regular haunts seemed devoid of grayling, despite the fact that normally we can catch large numbers of fish from these spots with great consistency.

My efforts were proving rather poor and I had this horrible feeling that the other three were probably bagging up.  After a quick check with them, I found that we were all struggling with barely a bite, let alone a fish caught.  In situations like this you have to explore each area bit by bit and use the float as a exploratory tool (Oh er missus) to see if you can locate some fish.  You need to fish different lines in the swim and control the speed of the float to allow a slightly varied presentation of the bait to try and gauge where the fish are and how they want the bait presented.  As any float angler knows that by using different weight floats and altering your set-up slightly (bulking of shot higher or lower, stringing shot out, or altering the proximity of the dropper shots to the hook) you can very greatly the passage of the float and more importantly the baits progress downstream.  Sometimes holding back really hard and just allowing it to almost inch through the swim can be the only way to get a bite, whilst at other times they seem to like a fairly regular speed to take the bait.  Keep playing until you get results.

Dolly Country

As the afternoon wore on the sun poked its head out and the surrounding hills were lit up in spectacular fashion by the sun’s rays.  It was still freezing though but the clear blue skies and sunshine certainly helps to cheer you up after such a long spell of dreary, grey conditions. I kept wandering and altering my approach and eventually hooked a fish, which promptly came off.  I saw the fish and it was a grayling, so at last I had at least found some fish and induced a bite.  I continued in this spot for some time and caught a couple of average sized grayling and a nice chub of about 3lbs or so.  Sadly though that was it.  It had proved to be a tough opening day with Dan biteless and Geoff graylingless.  Not the best start we’ve had and yet conditions looked ideal.

Well keep a welcome in the hillside.

Still we had a warm welcome from our wonderful hosts Richard and Jane at the cottage and booked in for one of their amazing breakfasts the following morning, so things were looking up! 🙂