WYE TROUT.

I think we all know that the Wye holds good numbers of trout throughout its length, often to a decent size but I don't think in all honesty it's the sort of river where you would go expecting to catch particularly big fish.   Its true there are big ones almost anywhere .  They are predatory on anything smaller than itself and take a huge toll of small fry year on year including. minnows, coarse fish fry, , trout and salmon parr.   They are often caught by accident when salmon fishing or sometimes by coarse fisherman pike fishing.

The upper beats are most likely to provide numbers of fish but a big one could come from anywhere but the gutters of the upper river downstream to Glasbury hold some good fish that at the right time of year station themselves in a the narrow fast water spots and pick off descending smolt too.  The biggest I set up was a fish from Gromaine -cant remember how big 6 or 7 perhaps  They also herd the minnow shoals into the necks of the fast waterfalls, where, similar to the mackerel I mentioned a day or so ago there escape tactic was to jump out onto the ledges near the surface to avoid them, often with the added hazard of a crow or two ,who quickly locked on to the fact there was an easy meal, and just stalked around picking them off..
Lip hooked minnows were a sure fire bet for these trout and one memorable evening I had four on this method for 10 pounds.

One day I was doing some work when I kept noticing that a shoal of dace were throwing themselves out of the water to escape an attack from below.  Pike obviously I thought, except it was not.  I came down that afternoon and armed with a snap tackle wire trace and good sized dace I fished sink and draw through the area of disturbance.  I hooked a fish that seemed a disappointing size though it was outgunned by the tackle I was using.  It turned out to be a brownie of about 3 1/2lbs,   Big dace, snap tacle and wire trace made no difference-it wanted it alright.  A good many anglers have caught big trout dead baiting for pike and so many times I had parr attacked by only moderate sized fish.   Heaven only knows how many small fry even a moderate brownie takes during the season.

The bigger fish often don't rise to fly unless there are really heavy hatches, not so usual these days. I saw a fish rising one day which I thought at first was a small salmon. There was a big hatch of Yellow May Duns and it was having its share and moving quite a bit of water as it took each fly.  That afternoon I came down with the trout rod, the fish was gone from its spot but eventually I saw it  a further 10 yards upstream.  Anyway I covered the fish, it took and after a great scrap I landed a super brown trout of 4lb 6ozs which I later set up and made a cast of.   See below/;

Fish up to two pounds are always a possibility with the fly however and good trout fishing can be have especially on the upper river and some tributaries.   A bigger one is a prize.  But if you want a really big one think fish baits or perhaps big streamer flies