The River Anton August 10th 2013

Im gona start by first of all thanking Elliot Penn for the expert advice and good company last weekend. Well what can I say other than last week was probally one of the best days fishing fishing I have had.
We arrived at the river around 9 o'clock and after we rounded up our things we head down to the fishing hut. to say I was a little excited was an understatement upon my first glimse of the river I could not believe how crystal clear the water was you could see every little stone on the river bed.

LOOK AT THAT

 

First things first get tackled up and get fishing I didn't care how hungry I was, all I could think about was getting that first fish in the net and then forgetting everything and just enjoying my day as thre are not many anglers who get the chance to fish a river like  this.

So I observed Elliot for a few minutes to see which was the best approach to this fine river. he fished the dry but there was not much happening on the top so we switched to the nymphs.

we worked our way very slowly up the river picking out fish and casting to them and working out what the where interested in. I then spotted as I though was a decent brown of around 1lb ish feeding on the nymphs so I tied on a little size 16 brown orange hothead bug and cast it in to the fishes path. On the first pass the fish showed interest in the nymph but did not take it. Second cast was perfect PLOP straight in front of him I could see the hot head trundling across the bottom then a puff of gills a white mouth and I lifted straight in to the fish then all hell broke lose.

To my amazement this fish was a lot bigger than I first thought and fought like a train. The fish had a good few runs and in the net he went.

That was a big tick in the box for me and now I could relax and enjoy the rest of the day I didn't care if I didn't catch another fish as this was enough in itself.  

 

 

This is the nymph that I caught the fish on

 

 

And this is the fish

 

As you can see I was chuffed to bits with this fish, and what me this fish more fun was as I was playing this fish Elliot had also hooked into a good fish almost seconds after I hooked mine smiles all round. 

The river Anton was a beautiful place and was packed with wildlife and rammed with fish it took me and Elliot about 3 and half hours to fish the first 50 yards of river and we had a third of a mile all to ourselves but we were in no rush as we had till dark. 

After a few more fish each (grayling) we then stopped for a bite to eat. After a snack and a long chat about everything  and  cup of tea we got back on to the river. We took up were we left off and slowly progressed up the river both of us hooking into a few more fish and both of us losing a few cracking brownies one of which was a lump all I remember as Elliot running down the river bank chasing this hooked up fish which then decided to go airbourne he had one more run then GONE after a compliment from me and a few swear words from mr penn I could see that he was gutted as this was a big fish.

We worked our way right to the end of the beat the top section after the weir was a lot more tougher than the bottom due to a lot more weed but we still had a few.

we the decided to have a cup of tea and a break there was only a few more hours left

 

 

The end was closing in and the evening rise was upon us. So a quick swap to the dry fly was on the cards I unfortunately did not manage to land a fish on the dry missed  few I wasn't quick enough but Elliot on the other hand landed a few grayling on the deadly K.j which is becoming lethal I have been lucky enough to get my hands on a dozen of the originals tied y the man himself. 

Elliot also landed a  few brownies on of which was an absolute stunner.

 

 

I got a little frustrated with the dry fly I missed a few fish after Elliot landed the fish including a grayling. So I switched back to the nymphs for the last hour and ended on a high.

I have to say it again but this was an experience I will never forget and also a big thank to Elliot for the great company. I can not wait to do this again hopefully Dai and Alan will come next time and experience what I did.
Well that is the end of this blog  I will try and post some pictures of the other flies that I caught on in my next post which I am going to try and do a step by step of the nymph that worked so well for me which I have none left as there areal up trees on the majestic River Anton.

Here are a few more photos taken on that fine day.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading this and comments are more than welcome.

  



This is what i have been doing for the last week

In reference to my last post it states that I haven't been out fishing for a number of weeks now, so what i've been doing is tying flies when everi get chance ready for the some river fishing. I said last year that I was going to do a lot more on the river but I never got around t it.
And then a friend of ours posted an advert on facebook readin 'spare rod going for the river test' well I jumped right in and put my name down.
So im fishing the river test on the 10th of august which is only a few days away. so what I did last week was order 3 fulling mil slim line boxes and set out at filling the up with flies the
1st will contain nymphs in all sizes 16 to 12
2nd will contain jig nymphs in sizes 16 to 10
and the 3rd will contain bugs and grubs 14 to 10

  I am new to all this river fishing so I have been doing my home and copying patterns and make stuff up you know how it goes, and I am happy with what I have done all I got to do now is catch fish which I dont think will be a problem as I am fishing with a very good angler who has fished this river before so I am in good hands .

Here are a couple of photos of the fly boxes that I have started to fill up and a couple of shots of single flies hope you like them

 

 

Well i finally done some fishing

Well I finally got out on the weekend and did some fishing, I have to say that it has been long over due haven't been out for a while.
Got picked up Saturday morning at half 7 and we headed to our first port of call. We decided to just have a few hours out of the house and not to travel far so we headed to Abernant trout fishery which is only 20 minutes drive from the house. We had a new member to the gang on saturaday he is a relatively new comer t fly fishing so abernant was an ideal place to head . I haven't been to this fishery for a number of years and I must say that I was shocked to see how much the lake has been clean up.
Alan was off to a flyting start first cast resulted in a fish to the net caught on a orange hot black zonker.
I dropped a couple of fish but finally managed to land one about half hour later on the faithful blue hackle damsel a fly that never fails where ever you are. Mad mike the new guy was struggling a little so Alan tied on a blue hackle damsel and was quickly followed by a fish to the net.
Now we had been here for a couple o hours and I was just playing around with fish over in the shallow parts of the lake seeing wot the were interested in I missed a few that came to the dry but that's another story.
By this time Alan had bagged up by this time so he suggested that we head to garnfrwdd t finish the day off which I was bang up for so we packed up and head up the M4.
When we arrived at garnfrwd first thing first bugger and chips had to be done chris serves lovely food at the café.
The lake itself is looking absolutely awesome but the fish are still recovering after this weather that we have had. we tackled up and head off for a spot of fishing. Now in my last blog The Diawl bach project I said that I was going to tie a number of  different variants and fish them, but that was short lived due to the weather. Although th two brownies that I landed both fell to the orange holographic tag diawl bach. after about 2hours fishing I went up to h café for a cold drink, and that was the end of my fishing ended up have a long chat to th fishery owner who has become a good friend to me and the lads. Cant wait for or weekend at ash lodge at garnfrwdd at the end of September .
  

Evening Fly Fishing Comp 3rd July 2013

There is to be a competition held at Garnfrwd on the evening of Wednesday 3rd of July 2013 @7:00 sharp.
Fishery rules apply But
Anglers are only allowed to use 1 Rod and a floating line and also only use one fly.

DIAWL BACH PROJECT 2013

Its been a while since I last blogged. Over the last few weeks I have been up to my eyeballs in work and my mam and dad have been renovating their house so I have been helping out up there, BUT I have still been out fishing on the weekend as much as I possibly can and still making time to tie some flies.
I will admit that I have been stuggling to think of things to blog about and want to keep it as fresh as possible. Being relatively new to this whole blogging thing I have realised that other bloggers that I follow pic themes and challenges. I on the other hand do not know wot to themes or projects to pick.
So what I am going to do is pick a simple project to start off with and go from there.
Now we all now of the legendary fly that is called the Diawl Bach im sure every angler has used one at some point in his life as this is a trusted and proven pattern in all types of water and in many country's.
What I have decided to do is to tie up a few different variant's and try them on the water's that I fish. and see which one does the best and keep a record of it. I am also going to try and do a step by step tying of a the Famous pattern for all to see. Now I know there is nothing special about the tying of a Diawl Bach and there are probally hundreds of step by steps out there but I think its nessary for this little project.
This project or challenge that I have decided to take on may not be to everyone's liking but I imagine there are many people out there who like myself along time ago who have never fished anything other than lure's and I am not saying that everyone who fish lure's are in the wrong and I like nothing more than to put one of my trusted go to lures on have the trout smash and them to bits.
I just think that New fly fisher man should be given the information that allows them to fish different styles and method's of fly fishing as there are so many to utilise.
I am going to do this project/challenge starting from today and have all ready tied up a few Diawl's which I will be giving a swim at garnfrwd trout fishery on sunday where I am fishing a fundraiser competition which Is being held to help raise money foe the 2013 International Welsh Bank Team
who are representing Wales in the international competition that is being held in Scotland in October.

So here is a little taster of what is to come 

 The first pic Is of a Diawl Bach that I have been using for a bit and has caught me a few trout and the difference with this pattern is I have used Coq De Leon for the tail and throat hackle which I think gives it a nice little edge. And the second one is fresh of the vice and something completely different to normal its a Diawl Bach using the Cats whisker colour's green white and red.

The Airflo Story

The Airflo Story is one of my favorite fishing videos of 2013! I've always been interested in how fly lines are made and this video has cleared a few things up. Have a watch and see for yourself.

Garnfrwdd Sunday 7th April 2013

Visited Garnfrwdd again today and when we arrived it looked like it was going to be a good day. We had all agreed that today was gona be a pleasure day and not fish our league. the morning was good nice weather a little breeze and fish were coming to the net. I told myself last night that I was gona try different methods as im feed up of pulling lures although I love lure fishing it has started to become a little boring and I need to perfect my skills in the different methods. After looking at the Garnfrwdd facebook page the other night (checking out a photo of a big brown that was caught) I looked at the fishery reports and I could see that people have been having some good top of the water action, and the olives have sarted to hatch. So my next mission was to tie some olive dry flies so I looked on google and the blogs that i follow i found a few patterns I like but the one I liked was form terry (taffdiaries.wordpress.com) it was actually an olive cdc emerger pattern so I knocked a few up ready for our trip today and low and behold the little buggers caught a few fish today. Me Dai Alan and sprog managed to land over 50 fish between us today don't really know the exact number but we all had a good day. There was also a monster rainbow landed today if I had to guess how heavy it was I would say around 17/18lb and I think that is a garnfrwdd rainbow record. It goes to show how healthy the lake is supporting all these big fish. I think I had around 14/15 fish today and they were spread out all over the lake some on buzzers some on dries and some on the nymphs and I caught on maybe two on the lure. I know I know I did say that I was gona try and not use lues today but I couldn't help myself. Here are the patterns that caught.