Deep in the Valleys
River fishing has looked a non starter in my neck of the woods for last week or so. The ground is saturated and any rain that falls is quickly adding to the already bank high and brown torrents that pass as rivers at the moment. So the email from Teifi Terrorist to come and fish the Rhymney was met with joy and a certain amount of disbelieve that any river could be remotely fishable, never mind, "falling and clearing, should be good for Thursday".
On my way there I crossed: the Lugg; a bank high brown torrent, the Wye; 3' off flooding a third of Hereford, the Dore; a muddy inundation, the Monnow; high and coloured (might be fishable by the start of next week, IF no more rain), the Usk racing, high brown, spate. After that the Welsh, in their wisdom board up the sides of the river bridges to prevent anglers crashing as they crane their necks to see. I was extremely doubtfull that TT's informants were not having in him on.
The first of the river I saw was as I turned off the main road into Llanbradach. It was rattling down a narrow valley, aren't they all in this part of the world, with only a tinge of colour and, from the tide marks, was obviously falling. Things looked hopeful.
On my way I had passed factories and industrial estates pressed tight into any available space available on the narrow valley bottoms and towns and housing estates clinging to the steep sides of mountains but above these, like a tree line on an alp were fields, woods, hedges and fences, that clearly did not keep sheep in because they would appear from no where even on the main roads in the valley bottoms. In such a place It is hard to believe that any fish survive never mind trout and grayling but TT insisted that the river was stuffed with them and that we might well see a good hatch of large dark olives, which they rose to throughout the year. Yeh right!
We tackled up on the edge of what was described to me as a pool but the river, at this hieght made most of its length look like a rapid with white horses that were having their heads whipped off by a strong wind blowing back up against the current.
In some respects I am lucky because I know so little about grayling fishing and the methods used to winkle them out that I do not feel down hearted when confronted with a particular set of conditions. TT has all the knowledge and more than one so young should have so he was already making his apologies for the height and colour of the water, the weather, the inevitable lack of fish and the banksides covered with all types and amounts of indescrible rubbish that festooned them following the floods in order to ease my impending and certain disappointment.
I, on the other hand, was happy to be out on a river with a rod in hand and unaware of any of these minor difficulties.
My lack of knowledge also makes it easy to choose what tackle to use; a Klinkhammer and 3.5' of 3lb tied off its shank and onto a nymph. Except that TT felt that my brown and green selection might be a little muted for the conditions so generously presented me with a nymph that made me realise what is meant by the colour shocking pink. Not happy with the body of the fly being capable of distracting drivers on the main road partly obscured by woods and fifty yards away the hook was of the same garish hue.
Tied with an under body of lead and a gold head it felt distinctly awkward to cast on my 4 wieght rod so shorter, rounded casts, from the bank to start with, were going to be the order of the day. The river raced the fly down and past me even in the slower stretch that I started to fish in until, on the third cast its sprint was interupted, a tentative lift of the rod set the hook but because of an overhanging tree I could not get a good enough hook hold and the fish came off in the fierce current when it got below me. Two casts later and almost an exact copy occurred. Three further fish were hooked in quick succession and lost and this was in the pace of 10 minutes fishing. I joked that TT did not want me to catch any of his Welsh grayling as I used my pliers to off set the hook. The next six from the first pool all stayed on and the fish revealed themselves to be all in the 12" range, fat, fit and obviously thriving.
TT had started with a czech nymph set up but the wind was blowing the line so hard that he could not see the takes. Well that was his excuse anyway. Once he had readjusted things so that he was fishing his heavy team under a bung he started to catch fish in impressive numbers and in areas where my single nymph could not cover effectively.
The river was living up to its reputation and and even the odd olive was begining to make an appearance. The next half hour was slow as we fished another pool where the water was flowing even faster and my fly could not get down quick enough to reach the fish.
On the the third pool I spotted a quieter area of water just below a shallow weir and left TT to risk drowning so that he could fish the outside of a bend where the water was racing through a deep channel.
I had been quietly working my way up toward the likely looking spot when I was rudely interrupted by a shout. Normally I would ignore this sort of intrusion but he could have been making a desperate call for help as he disappeared under for the third time so I glanced over my shoulder to see his rod bent double as the line stretched away downstream from him. Silly boy had obviously caught a log on the far bank that had fallen in and was now making its way at speed to the Bristol Channel. No, worse than that he had hooked a really good grayling, much bigger than anything that I had caught so far, and it was using its dorsal fin to great effect in the swollen current. To hand it measured 15" and was the largest fish TT had caught on this river. (I will try and get TT to post a picture of it on the appropriate forum).
Back where I had left off I found a few seems of current that were quieter than the rest and fish began to take the nymph with relish. Right under the wier the water looked at its fiercest but pockets of water boiled rather than raced and three fish of 13" or so came from an small area that had taken some spotting and wading to, real satisfaction.
With the light the fishing faded and we drifted down to the try the first pool that we had fished in the morning. The stick we had placed there showed that water had dropped 2" during the day and it had noticeably cleared as well. We chatted to another angler who had been finding it difficult going. He explained that the grayling had only been introduced into the river in about 1980 and that they had been stocked from the southern chalkstreams where they were then still being erradicated as vermin.
It was a great day, I learnt a lot, fished a new river in good company and my nymph box will never look the same.
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you're worse than me! 
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