Conditions in many areas will be as good as it gets with the river fining down and dropping only slowly.   Should be fish in all areas now and being prime time for the Wye catches must surely accelerate for the rest of the month.

Two fish from the Carrots to Dave Roberts again, flying C.

Not to be outdone Malcolm Edwards had two fish from Letton today, one from the Point the other from Sandy Bank. Again on a F/C

Two more from the Rectory for Simon Evans on Bann special. 10 and 16lbs.this evening.
Seems everything comes in two's at the moment.

Late report of two fish from the Rocks, Builth Wells 24lb and 18lb springers.


UDN POSSIBILITY

Another picture of the dying-now dead fish removed from the Wye.  There is much speculation as to the cause of its demise with the possibility of UDN
See below the picture the latest information from the EA. The best advice I can give is to  ring their hotline  0800 80 70 60 and get advice as to your future actions.

Firstly can I introduce myself. I am Chris Baingers line manager. I must apologise for the lack of response to date to your email, Chris unfortunately over looked it amongst the large numbers of emails he received. The advice that Chris gave out was aimed at the general angling community, to try to prevent the taking of vulnerable fish. We should have provided bespoke advice to knowledgeable and professional anglers such as yourself and Mr Talbot. I think it would be a worthwhile exercise for us to meet face to face to discuss this incident in more detail. I think it would help us work better together in the future on these types of incidents. I will get in touch with the WSA and WUF to make arrangements. We are extremely grateful for the effort that Mr Talbot put in, as we are for the large number of anglers and groups who work with us on a range of fisheries issues.

We have yet to receive the report back on the fish from our laboratory, as soon as its available, I will send it on. Our scientists have made us aware that as the fish was dead, and had been frozen, it is unlikely they will be able to provide any conclusive results on the presence of UDN.

We do have a 24/7 incident response capability for pollution incident response.  Our response   is based upon the initial assessment of risk to the environment. On this occasion we received the initial call at 15.00, with the officer arriving on site around half passed six. We had to discuss the case with our laboratory first to see if a test could be carried out on the dead fish, and if it would give any conclusive results. Although the advice was it would be unlikely to give any conclusive results, we decided it was important to at least try to see what had effected this fish.

From Chris Bainger EA.

But most importantly can you please get a clear message out, that we DO NOT want fish killed that may be suspected of UDN or other skin conditions.

The clear message from the Environment Agency at Local Area- all fish should returned alive- no matter what the condition, or returned even if dead and notify the Agency.

Please also make it clear that removing salmon with a hand net e.g. it spotted dead or dying in the margins, is unlawful and could result in enforcement proceedings.

Please encourage folks to notify the EA on the Emergency Hotline Number0800 80 70 60,  if they suspect fish that are unwell or distressed in anyway.

DO NOT REMOVE OR KILL SALMON SUSPECTED OF UDN or OTHER SKIN CONDITIONS, CONTACT THE ENVIRONMENT AGENCY