One small cheroot to that man!

Yellow may it is. I have rarely seen the duns being taken on the Monnow. As for the spinners they tend to look like the spinners of a lot of other flies so who knows if they are on the trout's menu as imagos. Because they are easily seen and recognised one can get fixated on them where as the fish aren't. Watch closely and see if any are taken when they hatch and are on the water.

The exception to this is on the Usk and Derbyshire Derwent. On the former the trout fed exclusively on them and of course I had nothing in the box so spent a very frustrating hour or so being rejected every cast for the lack of something yellow in #14.

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"The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning."

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Here are two of the fish Peter caught at Skenfrith.




and the other.




I for one would be surprised to find blue dots on the bellies of either of these fish
All the best.

Frank

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Frank Williams APGAI

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Friday afternoon at Skenfrith, in one of the long pools there were 5 or 6 fish rising to Yellow Mays. I caught one and put the rest down. I caught most of my trout on a size 14, and there were no other files on the water of that size.

I agree with CF about the Usk, I have seen the whole river come up to a hatch of Yellow Mays.

wjd

I also agree that Monnow trout don't seem to like them much, in all my years on the river I've never taken a fish on one.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Just a bit more precision and a correction on my earlier post.

There were 5 or 6 fish intermittently rising along a long flat pool. There were Yellow mays, small black midges and gnats, a few sedges and some smaller duns around (2 tails, darkish, possibly medium olives). On reflection, it was overstated to say that they were all rising to Yellow mays, but several of them definitely were. The flies were skittering along the surface and there were a few big splashy rises to them. In one remarkable incident, a good trout jumped about a foot out of the water trying to get one that had just taken off.. I put the first two fish I cast to down without response. Changed from a size 14 to size 16 parachute Adams and rose the next without hooking. Finally caught a fish near the top of the pool. That had certainly rose to at least one Yellow May whilst I lined up a cast to it.

Given the numbers of Yellow Mays on the water, there were very few fish rising to them. Really only in that pool. The other two rising fish that I caught were both rising to smaller flies. I caught all the trout on a parachute Adams, which is a very general pattern, albeit one that I have used with success on Yellow May hatches on the Usk.

I was on the Honddu last week and there were lots of Yellow May around, but again no fish rising.

The trout certainly do not seem very keen on them, but the occasional fish does take notice.

Cheers,

wd

Agepetus fuscipes Is the answer. No known fisherman's name but coincidentally there is an article in the latest FT&FF on them and their cousins by Stuart Croft.

Basically they are a little brown sedge 5mm/size 20 that hatch late evening to night fall by swimming just subsurface toward the bank where they hatch by climbing out on vegetation. So a small dark emerger pattern might do it. The fish were certainly interested in them and not surprisingly so judging by their indescribable numbers.

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"The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning."

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A quick report from my day on the Monnow yesterday. I finally got around to using my MFA auction day on the Garway water. First let me just say what a fantastic fishery the Monnow is! And the surroundings are so beautiful. It really is one of the best places on earth. A little slice of heaven.

The conditions were perfect (light rain and overcast) and the river was in very good form. A little colour and higher than when I have fished it before.

Not sure exactly how many fish I caught, but I believe the technical expression is 'shedloads.' I started out swinging buggers in the AM right on the surface, provoking some fantastic aerial strikes from the SBT's. Worked my way down the waterloo beat aways and then nymphed back up to the ford. Every likely looking spot gave up trout and grayling to PTN GRHE and CZ's. A few WBT in the mix too. One would have gone about 2 lb. Those wild monnow brownies sure do jump! I was laughing out loud at times.

Had lunch and some more WBT on a favourite stretch of the Home beat and then finally found some consistently rising fish in the calmer water at the bottom. They were not after the yellow mays (refering to the previous posts on this subject) , but there were some fairly large olives around and the trout were on them. A size 14 dogs body mayfly did the business. I started below the last rising fish and systematically caught them all! The rise forms were small and delicate but those little rises were made by good sized trout.

The surface activity stopped around 5pm when the wind came up, so I nymphed down and back up through the waterloo stretch - again with great success.

This was one of the best days of fishing I have ever had. Thanks again Dave et al at MFA! When's the next auction???!!!

Mike

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Today the fish pass around Osbaston Weir is completed. I shall be there and will report back on that and the subsequent days fishing (elsewhere). It's been two weeks since my last day fishing!

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"The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning."

www.monnow.org

Can you take your camera and let us have a look?

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Managed a wander along the riverbank for a couple of hours last night. No rod just some great company Met up with Macsas in The Bridge for a chinwag about things life, the universe and Monnow. Ambling upstream on the Bridge beat and up to the flats, the river obliged by showing her full set of charms, plenty of rising fish throughout and flurries of kingfishers streaking about.

The river is very clear and fairly low but I would suggest that anyone venturing out in the evening at present will have a productive time of it. Heck, might even have to wet a line myself, it has been over a fortnight

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"A homeward tramp thro' mist wrapped night,
With heart and creel in common light,
Complete content, the day has brought it,
They fished for pleasure - and they caught it"

P F Morgan
taken from the catch record book at Llanthony Hotel, Honddu Valley, Aug 1942

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