Beanhill Lake Report

Into July now, and instead of the heat-wave conditions of recent years, we still seem to be stuck in a chilly, wet spring. The Beanhill trout have continued to do what they usually do in spring, which is to feed hard on midges, so sport has been good for those prepared to stand out in a bit of rain and wind. Nearly all the action has been at the top of the water, either on the surface or just below. I would advise setting up a light dry fly outfit, maybe a 5 weight with nylon or co-polymer leader and something like a small Griffiths Gnat or Grizzle Emerger to cast at fish you see on the move. Larger flies will provoke interest, but you may find the takes are not so confident. Take care to keep the fly small, clip away any hackle from underneath the hook so that it sits low in the film and degrease the last couple of feet of leader. On the second rod, maybe a 6 weight, try a fluorocarbon leader to cut thorough the surface with something like a small Diawl Bach, or a slow sinking “hairy” type buzzer in red or claret. The shallows at the head of the lake are generally more productive than the deep water by the dam and keep your eyes open for fish on the move a couple of feet down. You can bet that if you can see them dashing around down there, they are taking pupae and you can get them sooner or later on a slow sinking imitation. Just as in the real spring, takes can be very violent, and a hooked fish is likely to make a long charge when it feels the weight of the line. I had a couple of fish take the whole 30 yards of a double taper five line and quite a lot of the backing out before turning back – each of them only a little over 2 pounds, but in very fit condition.      

All our local rivers are high and muddy at the time of writing. In a brief fall of the water, a few salmon started to be taken on the upper and middle Wye, including the Rectory, Glanwye, and no less than three on the spinner from Pwll y Faedda. (This was a Thursday, so most of us had to be, tragically, at work!) Then the level rose again so that fishing had to stop, and now we all wait anxiously to see what has come in from the sea.

During river floods, I find myself exploiting all the lake fishing I can get my hands on. This time thought I would have a day on Grwyne Fawr reservoir, high in the Black Mountains. Nearly 1,900 feet above sea level, 150 feet deep in places and a long Landrover drive up a wild moorland valley, this is a fishery with characteristics more usually found in the north of Scotland or the west of Ireland. Simon stocks it with rainbows, including a few doubles, so a real surprise is occasionally on the cards. I had an 8 pounder one memorable spring day a couple of years ago. There is also a head of wild brownies, the offspring of the originals which were living in the brook nearly 100 years ago, before the dam was built. This is one of the very few fisheries where you can use a float tube, which is the ideal way to paddle around exploring some of the steep and otherwise inaccessible margins. And the margins are the place to concentrate on, because these waters are cold, dark, deep and infertile. From the edge, you can easily be casting out over 30 or more feet of depth. It isn’t so common to find fish moving in the centre of the lake, unless the beetles and other land insects which form the bulk of their food are being blown out from the shore. On this day the reservoir was full to the brim and the water was stained with peat to a delicate red tea colour. This is a place to fish the surface. Nothing was rising, but I was not too concerned as it is often possible to draw the fish up with the action of the bob-fly. And in fact, I doubt if I saw more than half a dozen natural rises during the whole day, excepting the ones to my own flies.

I like to keep things simple with the float tube, knowing that a tangle around the rod tip is somewhat awkward to sort out once you are afloat. (The other point to remember is not to drink too much coffee just before you get suited up, immersed in cold water and underway in the jiggling waves). Casting any distance is almost always unnecessary because the tube allows you to approach fish really close – most of the time you are just flicking the flies 10 or 15 yards down or across the wind. The rod was a 9 foot 5 weight, carrying a double tapered floating line which would not cause too much disturbance. I fished a degreased nylon leader with a single dropper carrying a size 14 Bibio, this well-greased up, and about five feet above the point fly, a Pearl-bellied Hare’s Ear Spider, also size 14. I used to use slightly larger flies, especially in a ripple, but generally nowadays find the size 14’s produce firmer takes. Once kitted out, it’s a matter of paddling and casting till you find the fish. There are a few known hotspots for rainbows: the corners of the dam, the creeks where side streams fall into the reservoir and the cliff of the old stone quarry at the top end. But the location of the fish very much depends on the direction of the wind over the previous days.

By the end of day, I had identified a shoal of rainbows moving consistently in an area under a steep bank: an area not more than 100 yards long by 20 yards out from the margin. I had caught and returned 7 of them, mainly by paddling along slowly parallel to the bank, casting in to the edge and slowly retrieving the flies out around a curve. All the takes had been solid and, very unusually, no fish were lost in play. Five had taken the little greased Bibio on the dropper as it bumbled its way through the rippling surface, mainly by coming out of the water and engulfing it on the way back down. Two more had missed the Bibio, but a second later taken the little Hare’s Ear tagging along behind a little deeper. And a very large rainbow (judging by the big, black head) had lunged at the Bibio and missed it entirely, not to be seen again. The fish of the day, though, came from 100 yards away on the far side of the inlet, where I dropped the flies hard against a steep bank beneath overhanging bracken and bushes. Something took the Bibio with a smack, and turned out to be a perfectly marked Grwyne Fawr brownie of 16 inches, a truly beautiful fish. No doubt he spent his time there waiting for beetles to fall out of the vegetation. I remember a couple of years ago taking another brown of two pounds from exactly the same spot.  

Oliver Burch

9/7/07