The River Arrow at Pembridge, 27th September 2010
This day resulted from my successful bid for Lot 65 in the Monnow Auction 2009, see
here.
Originally I had booked this day for early June 2010 but the weather intervened and we were washed off. With work and the weather it was not until last Monday that I was able to find a secure date in my diary. I invited Geraint (Grizzle) along for the day as we had fished the Usk earlier in the season without much success, and I can always do with an experienced angler at hand to help me out !!
We started around 10.30, having been introduced to the water by our host Tony Norman. This beat we were to fish is a private beat and is, at the moment, very lightly fished.
We decided to start at the bottom of the beat and work our way upstream leapfrog fashion (I didn't want to spoil any pools for my guest with my rather clumsy casting and dodgy wading). The beat is quite open with no fences, so access and casting etc. was quite easy. We had agreed that the best approach was to use a Hi-vis Klinkhamer with a gold tungsten bead head PTN suspended below.
Well, either due to incompetence or lack of fish present, we were still fishless by the time we were back at the bridge at the ‘halfway’ point. I say fishless, in truth we were both suffering from a distinct absence of offers (I did however manage to lose several of my nymphs on the river bed – nothing new there though).
Thankfully, our fortunes were soon to change.
The first pool that Grizzle fished upstream from the bridge proved to be a cracker. I arrived at the pool just as he was returning a lovely Grayling some 19ins in length, one of seven grayling he had taken from the pool in next to no time. Being the gentleman that he is, I was offered the opportunity to try the pool for myself and soon my duck was broken with a nice little grayling of about 12 ins. No blanks today I was relieved to say.
From then on we each caught fish regularly, most of the inviting looking runs produced fish, and often more than one.
My best fish of the day was caught from a particular run that produced three grayling in the first three casts. The first took the Klink, the next two the nymph (which, by now, was a copper beaded PTN – I had run out of small gold beaded PTNs
). The third fish was a beauty of 16ins, my best of the day and a personal best grayling. Those that know me will know the grin I had on my face for the rest of the afternoon
Fishing continued with several more grayling, mostly in the 10”-12” region but one did stretch to 14”. Most of my fish came to the nymph, but one or two took the Klink. There was a small hatch of Olives, but I seemed to do better with the nymph. By the time we reached the top of the beat, which was only a few hundred yards from the bridge, I was whacked. The top ‘half’ of the beat is just one field long, but to say that the river meanders would be an understatement, there were so many twists and turns in the river that we must have fished a mile of river, with lots of fishy looking runs along the length.
I don’t know how many fish I caught, I tend to stop counting after the first, but there were enough to have made this a most enjoyable and productive day. I only had one wild Brownie, a lovely fish of about 12” or so, but there had been many grayling.
I’m sure that Grizzle will add to my tale with details (and photos) of his own catches, including at least two very nice brownies and three or four notable grayling, but I’ll leave that to him, except for the picture below, which is a picture of him with a lovely grayling taken from the same pool from which I had earlier taken my 16in fish.
Not wishing to be greedy we stopped at about 4pm and retired to the local hostelry. As part of the day, Tony had donated a voucher for two meals at The New Inn at Pembridge and so the day was rounded off with a very nice meal and some liquid refreshments.
So, will there be another day on offer in the auction later this year? We’ll have to wait and see. If Tony and the landowner are kind enough to be able to offer the day again then no doubt this post will liven up the bidding a little, but I will certainly be trying my best to make a return visit, hopefully chasing the trout next time.
Would my guest be invited again? given the fact that he had unashamedly out-fished me all the way up the beat? Only time will tell
, but then it was one of his Klinks that I had been using all day and he did help me a bit
Thanks Tony, Grizzle and the Monnow boys!!
The River Arrow at Pembridge
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