Still plenty of water but cleared well upstream.  Could be a fish or two today.

There has been a fish caught today on the middle river, approx 15 lbs. I have a photograph of it / Captor want's no publicity regarding the beat and I will respect that.


A superb springer from the Hampshire Avon enjoying improved catches of quality springers.



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Comment.

Someone bought the below paragraph to my attention from the WUF Oliver Burch monthly TROUT report.

“ Even dyed in the wool trout anglers can hardly have missed the very welcome report that the first 2016 Wye salmon was a portmanteau fish of 40 pounds taken from the upper river on the 12th while levels were falling slowly. When I heard the news, I was so delighted that I kept chuckling to myself for the rest of the day. Given the winter of floods we have just had, it is not surprising to find springers spread well upstream (there was another from the Rectory and we had a fish at Pwll y Faedda a few days later, although most of the action has been in the Ross to Hereford section). You may view this heavy springer as no more than a lonely reminder of the river's glory days. Or maybe, just maybe, you might hope that it is a harbinger of better days which are yet to come, on what the recent statistics clearly show is an improving river. It just depends on whether you are a glass half empty or glass half full sort of person. Curiously enough, for some reason the Gillies Association seemed to be rather down in the mouth about it.”

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I have to admit I no longer read this report,  glazing over well before the end, and having no real interest in catching 5/9” brownies some still with parr marks from Bideford Brook and the like. I moved on from that when I was 12 years old –still each to his own I suppose.

H e suggest we (RWGA) were ’down in the mouth’ about the report of the first salmon from Llangoed pool.  News to me.  The only comment I made was that it was not the ‘prettiest of fish’ which is was clearly not.  He then goes on to suggest that this fish and a couple of other from around Erwood is some sort of harbinger harking back to the glory days. Well I suppose with a few salmon under your belt it may make you feel qualified to make such a statement. Especially if your on another planet. For the record we were not down in the mouth about it –merely realistic.  He calls it a 40 pounder. Well we don’t know do we, nor do we know its antecedents. He presumably has only seen the photo like everyone else who has commented about it on various fora and who also gave I suggest a more qualified point of view on it. There were many chuckling with Mr Burch it seems but for rather different reasons.  We will I assure him not be getting excited about four fish above Glasbury by the 9^th April, but as always hope for better times.