It's amazing what can be just under your nose and yet completely overlooked. I have fished the Elwy for 20 years and always thought that it should contain some decent trout given that it runs through limestone for part of its course but never actually caught anything much except tiny browns picking up sewin flies. The thing is that I only ever fish it from June to August when the sewin are about and if I'm looking for browns I go to the Clwyd or better still the Dee.

We have done a fair bit of work in opening up one of our beats on the lower Elwy and I had heard a rumour that one of our members had caught browns up to 2lbs on mayfly from the beat last week so I thought I'd have a mooch for an hour and see what was about.

I bumped into two other members up there and checked out a couple of newly opened pools for the sewin season and then one of them suggested having a look at another pool where there had been some mayfly hatching.

There were at least five different species of upwinged flies hatching including mayfly. A couple of fish were knocking off the hatching mays under the overhanging trees and to cut a long story short I got two fish in half a dozen casts, one of about 11" and a cracking 15" perfect wild brown. I had no idea that there were fish of this class in the river.

Going back to my car with a smile on my face I was greeted by the sight of a dozen or so fallow deer grazing in the field next to the car park which topped off a really nice afternoon. Needless to say I will be going back there once or twice over the next few weeks - it really opened my eyes.

__________________
“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

I've managed to get a preview of the 2007 migratory fish catches for the Clwyd and Elwy, they are subject to correction, probably upwards rather than downwards but for what they are worth they show an improvement. Of course consistent high water may have a lot to do with the salmon catches but it also limited night fishing for sewin.

Clwyd: Salmon 104 (42% returned) Sea Trout 565 (64% returned)
Elwy: Salmon 31 (32% returned Sea Trout 163 (62% returned)

I am personally disappointed with the percentage of salmon retained given the very low catches on the Elwy in particular (and this was a good year), I would have preferred to see a similar figure to that for sea trout.

It is interesting that as a result of the high water two of the salmon came from the Aled.

This season promises to be very similar and there has been a 13lb+ sewin from the Elwy.

__________________
“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