River Severn, Wales

Last weekend I took a trip to Caersws, a small town in Mid Wales on the banks of the upper Severn. You can get there on a direct train from Birmingham in just under two hours and the river is a few minutes walk away from the station. The journey passes through lovely countryside as the landscape transitions from the flat English shires to the imposing mountains of Snowdonia. Mid Wales is a land of green rolling hills and wide valleys broken by pockets of woodland and yellow blossoming gorse. It's a bewitching place in spring when the pastures and hillsides are alive with sheep and bleating newborn lambs, and the gorse with bumblebees and small birds.

The single platform Caersws Train Station 

The day initially couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be sunny or cloudy but eventually the clouds settled to an ever present in the atmosphere. I figured that was probably for the best because the river was low and I hoped the blanket of cloud would embolden the trout.

I had fished the river before, in May 2009, and have fond memories of catching my first river trout on that day. This time I wanted to explore a different section of the river so I walked upstream from the road bridge for about a mile and came to a long pool with a flat, gliding flow, and halted. It was the sort of water which screams 'fish!' and I decided that I'd walked far enough. 

It was then that I saw another angler was ‘downstream’ fishing the fast water which flowed into the pool. We had a brief chat, mostly about a 2½lb grayling he claimed to have caught a little way upstream the week before, until a fish started to rise in the pool. The stranger turned around, gave a slightly sympathetic nod of his head that said “I was here first” and then began to cast his fly at the rising fish. Three casts later the bow waves of a spooked fish moving rapidly to the far bank signalled how well his slightly clumsy attempts had been received. That was it for him he said, he was just fishing in the morning. He moved on downstream towards the town, leaving the long pool ahead all to me. 

I sat down and watched the pool whilst I ate a late breakfast. Within a little while, a fish started to rise in the same place, energetic rises, to what looked like grannom sedge. I tied on an elk hair pattern and within a few casts I connected with a fat trout that leaped a foot out the water when hooked and, for its efforts, successfully managed to dislodge the fly. Not a bad start to the day I thought.

I tied a pheasant tail nymph to the hook shank in the New Zealand style and moved up the pool, trying a few speculative casts here and there, always conscious of a rising fish some way up the pool. I guess I’m not as patient at fishing as I could be and eventually I just waded up river as quickly and silently as possible to get into casting range of the rising fish. Its much more fun casting to a rising a fish but I knew I was passing up some good water too. I had cast a few times to the riser without any interest when, to my surprise, another fish rose just 3 metres behind me. A quick flick of the fly and up it came to sip in the dry fly. Being a bit rusty I struck far too soon (something I would do many more times that day). Instinctively, I flicked the fly back in a single movement and had the fish second time round, a grayling of about 1½lbs. I have since come to realise that grayling - but not trout - are quite tolerant of a wading angler. This grayling had deep wounds on one of its flanks, no doubt thanks to the attentions of a cormorant and it slipped out of my hands and darted away into the depths before I could get my camera out to snap a photo.

On several occasions while walking upstream I had the fright of my life when a pheasant or two would erupt in panicked flight from the grass just ahead of me. I can now appreciate just what quick reflexes must be required to shoot one on the wing. It was a good day to admire the river’s bird life.  I was accompanied all day by the birdsong of the smaller varieties and there were swan, ducks and geese aplenty.  

I lost what felt like a really good fish on the dry fly a little way up river, but made up for it later by catching a grayling a little under the 1lb mark. It put up a feisty fight for its size and I took some pleasure in catching it. I had earlier cast pattern after pattern at a number of fish feeding at the head of this pool – for a little over an hour – only for everything to be ignored. I gave up at first and walked away, deciding there were plenty of other fish to catch upstream (it transpired I could tempt none). A few hours later when walking back past the same pool the fish were still there, rising away, taunting me. I almost kept walking. In fact, I recall wanting to throw a rock into the pool in disgust! I'm glad I took up the challenge. Much to my surprise, this grayling obliged, taking a small grey emerger. It also agreed to stay and pose for a photo in the water before being returned. It made my day and said something about perseverance. 

  

No trout on this mercurial spring day, my first fishing trip of the season, but a good relaxing day out in Wales nonetheless.