Beanhill Lake Report

A few anglers had good sessions at Beanhill Lake over the holidays: George Price and David Bailiss taking rainbows on Buzzers and Hare’s Ear; Scott Cameron, showing some confidence to fish dries over Christmas, still catching on Hoppers. However, the weather has been quite a trial and torrential floods on the last couple of days of the year resulted in an inflow of discoloured water which turned the lake to the colour of coffee. I did manage one rainbow – on an Apps Bloodworm made with tendrils of flexifloss, an “in your face” kind of fly which looks like, not so much a little red chironomid larva, as a couple of lobs impaled on a hook. As the visibility at the time was about 3 inches, I reckon I was lucky that a fish managed to see that. The strangest sight amid the showers of rain was watching a brown of about 2 pounds trying to wriggle its way up the inflowing ditch and even over grass – the spawning instinct to migrate upstream is very strong in December.

The rivers have suffered too from the varying levels, and Wye grayling fishing has been hit and miss. As usual, it has been a matter of locating the shoals, which tend to be broken up by floods.  The Friday before Christmas I spent in freezing fog on Glanwye, once one of the greatest salmon beats of the upper river, and very good for grayling last year. I searched all the pools, wading with care on the slate ledges which project into the deep water, but just couldn’t find the fish, either with spiders or by Czech nymphing. Although rod rings were icing up all through the day, my theory that Large Dark Olives do hatch on every winter day was proved again – I saw one which drifted away like a little sail boat until it disappeared in the fog (how do they avoid freezing)…and nothing rose. Around then I bumped into Geoff Franks, chairman of the Gillies’ Association and keeper of this water, come to see if any salmon were cutting redds. Nothing was moving, although a recently dead male kelt which would have been about 15 pounds when in condition was lying in the margin.  Mr Franks admits to being a controversial figure – see his monthly report in Trout and Salmon – mainly because he is unconvinced by the habitat improvement strategy on which the Wye-Usk Foundation and the Environment Agency have pinned all hopes for the future, and sees no signs of a resumption of the spring and early summer runs of large fish for which the river was once famous. In the past, apart from spawners and kelts, fresh springers would already have been present in the upper beats by the end of December. He believes water abstraction and quality is to blame and favours Tyne-style restocking of grown-on smolts for the Wye. As Mr Franks used to account for as many as 150 to his own rod of the 250 salmon which used to be taken annually on Glanwye, he is worth listening to on this subject. In 2006, Glanwye took just 21 salmon; the total for the whole river was probably around 650.                 

Spawning salmon were present on Lyn Em, just downstream, the day after Boxing Day and water conditions were just about perfect for nymphing or spider fishing. Although this water has wonderful broad gravel runs, I didn’t contact grayling until they came up in the last hour before dark, when I got three with a Grayling Steel Blue on the top dropper. Two days later, on Charlie Picton’s beautiful Cefnyllysgwynne beat of the lower Irfon above Builth Wells, it was a race against the clock and a rising river after a night of heavy rain in the mountains. This 21/2 mile beat is a big water with all kinds of different pools, but levels can come up very quickly. I opted to trot red maggots with the centre pin, but ended up laying-on in a slack just to the side of a heavy and rising current at a pool neck.  The float slid away and a nice cock grayling proved that fish were sheltering there, but the second fish’s deep lugging as it hugged the bottom was worrying for a few seconds. What would I do if it turned out I was connected to a salmon by a size 18 maggot hook tied to 2 pounds nylon? It turned out to be a big old chub, nearer 4 pounds than 3, and very difficult to persuade into a New Zealand style net. By lunchtime, the river had coloured up and risen nearly 3 feet – time to go home.            

Oliver Burch
31/12/06