Just thought id jot afew words here during my lunch break for anyone thinking of venturing onto the River Usk this weekend to wet a line whos hopes may be lost due to the rains pusing down the valleys....

Yesturday evening I ventured out in a downpour , clutching my freshly finnished 8ft 3weight not expecting to find many fish rising due to my expectations of a river running red....
I met a friend, who as eager, or maybe I should say or as other may say, mad enough to venture out in weather such as it was.... Well, as many of us know, during a heavy spell of rain, durin this time of year when everything around has finally turned lush and green , there can be nothing better than these conditons for flyfishing, especially when your local stretch gets slogged to death by dogs chasing sticks and the fish sometimes may see more sticks and people than thier daily menue of aquatic insect, well, maybe not but it would sem like that....

Bring on the rain and one shall have the river to him self... That was pretty much the story yester eve, and, it is on these occasions that one gets to really see the spots that are well visited by many other than fisherpersons come alive ...

Well, youre getting the picture by now..... Im talking yellow mays and how much a joy it was last night to catch several fine fine fish from a river running red..... My friend had long departed and were merely out for a 10 minute strole.... I strode along in anticipation (as ever) to a long calm
where all the above fore mentioned takes place, dogwalkers , paddlers , drunks and the likes , blah blah blah.....

At around 8pm the yellow mays were really coming off in good numbers and it was while waching 5 mays fluttering off from the waters surface simultaniously that in the corner of my eye I saw a biol in the surface, tight to the bank just to the left of a grass hump.... After a few minutes of closer examination id spotted several rises, good rises they were too , some very subtle and some aggressive....

Like you I couldnt thread up quick enough, my leader was allready set up with a fine 3lb point, brilliant... On went the little yellow may , a scram,ble down the bank false casting as I went . I shot the fly line over the grass hump hooking just the leader onto the water, as I did the fish id spotted rose to a nutural just down a few feet from where my fly just landed, my fly gently drifted over the rise past the fish, I thought id screwd it as my line was hooked over the longgrass on the hump, however the fish turned and engulfed my fly, I struck and all went crazy... I Thanked the fish for being so obliging (sp?) and slipped it back into the river..... So, with good karma the next hour to follow went pretty much like that and was a real treat... I dont thing ive had such quick success on a river running as red as it was before and I urge anyone to scan the shallows of their river during a great hatch of yellow mays....

Cheers for now

FF - I'm really interested in this experience. Just how high and red was the river running? How visible would the Mays been to the fish?

My reason for asking is really to assess the fishability of the Monnow system at present. I went down to Kentchurch this morning and the river was almost in spate mode: about 2 and a half foot up, fast and red as tomato soup. Even the Longtown beat looked completely unfishable to me. Your story has made me question my judgement.

__________________
"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

Hi Folks,

I fished the Wharfe yesterday afternoon, (Yorkshire Elliminator) and it was up high and running a thick red/cocoa kind of colour. As you can imagine not the best of fly fishing conditions having risen all morning and peaking in hieght around 14:00. However it was starting to fall throughout the afternoon(although slowly about 2 feet between 14:00 and 18:00) and whilst still high up the bank and the same colour, at around 17:30 I started to see a few Yellow Mays starting to come off and a few trout rising in the slack water that I was fishing. Unfortunately after throwing what seemed likt the whole of the fly box at them for the last half hour of the comp I didn't managed to get one to take. I'm sure that by 20:00 this could have developed into a good hatch with some good sport.

Cheers

Mick

__________________
"There's only one way of life, and that's your own, that's your own, that's your own" The Levellers.

Although not fishing in a spate I have often fished the Monnow and smaller sister River Troddi in coloured water and often found that the fish were perfectly able to see and take mayfly hatching in water in which visibilty to me was not much more than a foot or so.

I fished the European Championships in Sweden in 2004 and it rained solidly for several days and on the final session of the final day we were fishing a small river that was already 2' up on the practise level and rising around 3" per hour. In any other circumstances I would not have fished but I had three hours and of course fished it. It was so cold and horrible that I climbed out every 30 minutes or so to warm myself by the log fire that the controller had built but had found a slight back eddy and concentrated on that and caught a 30cm trout on a GRHE nymph in water with less than 6" visibility and had another firm knock on a streamer.

On the previous session on a much bigger and flooded river I had caught three trout on the streamer and a fast sink line fished right under the bank I was standing on, in water so bad I couldn't find anywhere that I could even get in and wade, my wading stick just disappeared under the surface, and again I wouldn't have bothered had I not had to fish.

Now I don't so much worry about colour, it's when it's shooting through at a high rate of knots that puts me off most.

It is often the times when you have to fish in the worst conditions that you learn the most. I went up to the Derbys. Wye a few years ago, I forget the time of year and it was high and very coloured. If it had been my local river I would have gone home but because I had driven 2.5 hours I was b*ggered if I was going home.

By watching the water carefully from one spot I began to notice rises in the back eddies and good ones at that and managed to catch a few of them, admitedly not classic upstream dryfly fishing because if you fish the back eddy you are effectively facing downstream to the main flow but upstream to flow of the eddy. Anyway I hope that the river Gods have forgiven me! (For the benefit of RichardW it was a dry fly!)

The rain relented fairly early on in the day and by evening it started to clear and I began to catch fish by concentrating on the heads and tails of the pools, where it was shallowest. By the end of the day I had learned some valuable lessons and had some fish to show for it.

On the Monnow thread I have mentioned another story on mayfly in coloured water.

Matt is that you??????

Yes Mr Grizzle, Tis I..

Glad this thread sparked a little interest... Ill be looking forwards to the river settling down a little before I can expect any fish to be poking through the surface, once it looses maybe a foot or so I hope to experience the same as the other evening before the rains really did hammer down.... I have found that a solid coloured river may not provide good fishing if it is rising high, but, with a river running coloured and at a sustainable /low level it is likely for fish to carry on feeding from the surface on adult insects, especially in the shallows, close to the bank and over hanging or undecut embankments etc etc... I also find that the rain helps push such fly as the yellow may to emerge, and on many occasions I have found this to be the same for O'l March brown, and it comes as a great surprise when one least expects them to be hatching.... All in all, it is at these time one has to be out exploring to be graced with such enchanted moments....

For the smaller tributaries, especially during mayflytime (danica) is can be majic, a river rising or dropping, a rich tea stained silted bottom brook can provide the fisher with much sport when all the bigger rivers may be out of order.... A tighter situation, more flylife emerging and fish eager to pounce at a rods length....

Have fun,
fleaflicker.

CHeers FF - all helpful stuff. Reckon the Monnow will be "juicy" this weekend

__________________
"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

Thought it was!! so you and Mr C bin doing a bit of Red river fishing then and discovered that you can still catch fish!!!! maybe youve also discovered that a spate condenses the fish to little backwaters and eddies away from the main flow ...........you know the ones you would not normally look at but if you find one fish, there is usually lots there and they will be feeding............

g

p.s..............totally agree on the Yellow May definately prefer to hatch during a bit of drizzle, the biggest hatches always occur during these conditions!! not that it matters though the trout dont take them because they taste bitter Who was the angling genius that came to that conclusion and more importantly HOW? So what pattern have you come up with this year for the emerger/dun???

g