I've just had a rather lovely day - fishing one of the Wye & Usk Voucher beats on the River Arrow (Beat 38, Mowley Wood).

The river was low and clear and fish in the streamier, thinner water were very 'nervous'. The start of this beat is slow moving and quite deep (the beat is delineated by two weirs) and it is pretty heavily treed throughout its length making for some testing and innovative casting techniques!

With not a great deal of fly on the water rising fish were hard to come by but I managed seven, all but one on a size 14 Orange Otter. Here's a couple of them.





The Wye and Usk Passport recommends a rod of 7 to 8ft however having started with an 8ft it was much easier amongst the trees with a 6' 6", 2wt - and a deal of fun!

__________________
[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

...and home in time for tea too

Nice work mate. Must give it a go some time.

__________________
"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

www.monnowlogue.com
www.monnow.org.uk

Left home at 5.30am this morning! Knackered!

__________________
[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

The Wye & Usk Foundation voucher beat R38 was my second excursion on a river and an opportunity to try my Sharpes Belmont 7 foot #2.


There was a moderate rise of these.


This was my ultimate reward for the day!


Well worth a trip if you enjoy a small river.

Popped up to the Arrow Mill beat (WUF R28) this morning for a bit of R&R. The river was up on my last visit but very little colour and I didn’t see any fish moving even after thirty five minutes of intense observation. Tried a bit of New Zealand nymphing using a #16 GRHE and a #12 grey Kilink as the dry with out any offers. Had a go at Czech style nymphing, but alas my nymphs were to light and weren’t getting down to the bottom so it didn’t produce anything except a bit of practice.

Reverted to a dry fly when I saw a small fish rising under a willow branch which produced a small brownie about 6 “ on a parachute tups. Later I found another fish rising occasionally and managed to get a response on the fifth fly, a grey klinkhammer, landing a beautiful 9” brownie.

Was putting into practice some of the things Frank had shown me on my day on the Monnow including the knotless nail knot – works well and helps for a smoother turnover.
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PD

Nice looking little river, I still have half a dozen WUF vouchers, must get over soon.

TF

Have fished this little river twice in the last week.
It appears to be full of fish of the 10" to 12" range, with the odd one to 14"
Fantastic fun on 6'6" rod using olive nymph. It does require a bit of imaginative casting!

I have a few days at Kington early in September and have a day booked on the Lugg at Lyepole (B29). I am going to sqeeze in an afternoon/evening on the Arrow so looking for recommendations. T&S has a piece by Jon Beer on the Titley beat which looks nice. Has anybody fished there, or R23, the Hindwell?

Regards

Peter

Marxach...

In the last couple of weeks I have spoken with both Jon Beer and Seth (from the ACA, used to work for WUF). Both spoke highly of Mowley Wood and Titley stretches, if you are happy to go for a consistent catch of not enormous fish. I fished the Court of Noke stretch in mid March and, to be frank, struggled, but it was early season and pretty nippy.
I am planning a Titley or Mowley Wood excursion in early Sept after my conversations with Jon B & Seth.
You can always give WUF a call - in my experience they are unfailingly helpful.

Good luck,

Jon

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Jon
Always time for one last cast...

Thanks Jon, a consistent catch of not enormous fish will be fine. You might like to think about Lyepole - I fished there yesterday with a mate and we had 26 trout & grayling between us. Mainly quite small but one grayling would have been 1lb or so......and we saw 2 otters and a kingfisher!

Regards

Peter