Wye and Usk Foundation Update 18th April 2005

Today the rivers are in their third substantial spate of the month. The last spate saw a decent push of salmon into the Upper and Middle Wye beats with fish being landed from from the few beats that were fished. The best fish at 30lbs, was taken at Bredwardine although other fish in the mid 20's were also caught from beats near Builth and on the lower Wye. Last weekend saw a further run of salmon into the lower river with sealiced fish coming from the beats below Monmouth. This current spate will encourage these to push up river. The upper Wye and beats above Hereford should start to come into good fishing order from Wednesday onwards (if no more substantial rain falls) and as this spate falls the upper Wye will offer a very good chance of a salmon to the fly.

On the Usk the spring salmon fishing has been slow but fish have now been caught above Abergavenny and hooked and lost as far up as Llangynidr. May is normally the main month for Usk springers and with the water levels set fair and further rain in the medium term forecast, we have high hopes for improved sport in the next 2-3 weeks.

The trout fishing has improved markedly in the last two weeks on the Wye with some good catches of fish to 2.5lb being reported from the main river and lower reaches of the tributaries. On the Usk the fishing has been excellent during the afternoon hatches but slow for the rest of the day. The last of the Dark Olives combined with March brown (Usk only) and Iron Blues are creating hectic rises in the early afternoon, with a few medium olives (probably small spurwing) sprinkled in. The March Brown and Dark Olives will fade away over the next week or so while the Iron blue and Medium Olives build. The Grannon are also staring to hatch in good numbers so as the river drops back we expect good sport.