Hi everyone

Hi everyone, sorry but i havnt been out much lately.  But i have managed to get out once on the main Taff system and managed to pick up some nice out of season trout and two grayling around the 1 1/2lb mark whilst practicing with my french leader and team of nymphs :)


Other than that its been pretty quite here at small stream addicts HQ other than work, work, work & more work aswell as rain, rain, rain & more rain >:(  so what better time to fill your box up with flies, flies & more flies :)

Here are a few from my collection and my two offices ;)


dirty office at work


slightly more cleaner office at home :p

dry flies :)







and some PTN'S & hares ear  nymphs ;)



Hope you enjoy.
Merry christmas & a happy new year :)

Something New For Next Season :)

After a long time not being able to fish due to out of season trout and working too much and not being able to go grayling fishing from helping my brother move it took its tole on me and i just had to at least see or get close to some running water.  So i decided to take my dog (lady) to a very very small wild stream a stones throw from my house in the deep valleys and hills just outside of the breacon beacons.  The stream is a very wild one which i have never fished before and only walked up a short bit of it untill today and boy was i happy with what i saw,  deep and fast runs aswell as some shallow ripply water which you just know when the summer comes will be full of trout which will be more than happy to snatch up your dry flies.  There was also a few spawning beds there too but i couldnt get a tidy picture of them with my camera >:(
stunning pockets, pools and runs :D

if you look closely on the left hand side of the picture you can see a small spawning bed in the river :)






proof of mink or otters living up there and the size of some of the fish spawning there.  ( my hands are not small by the way )


deep gorges

And my last stop which looked like as if there was a lot of activity going on in it ;)

The Upper Neaudd

i decided to fish the upper neaudd as its the last weekend of the season up there this weekend and im missing the small streams and dry fly fishing.  I took  Sid and my good friend Mario.  It would be my second time up there this season and i didnt have much luck the first time but everyone else did on my flies >:(

we got to the gates of the resoviour at 9:00am and after we opened them it was a picture perfect moment so mario posed for the camera


after we had to go through the 2 gates unlock/lock all the locks and gates we finally arived to the resoviour and there was fish rising everywhere in the calm water so all 3 of us were eager to get kitted up asap and get on the water and catch some fish.  I was set up on a 9ft 6/7# with a 15ft leader with one dropper to start off with.



As soon as we hit the water what all we could see was a LOT  of small fish about 1/4 maybe 1/2lb scitting off from the shallows into deeper water and i was kicking myself as i should have known better :mad: so straight away i moved from that spot and went to deeper water.  I was casting short csts t first incase some fish were close in like in the shallow water earlier on but nothing so i extended my line nd still nothing.  This went on for about 4 hours and about 20 changes of flies so i waited for a bit nd had a rest.  Then i noticed sid on the other side hooking inot some fish but loosing them a good few times and nearly throwing his rod in the resoviour jumping up and down in anger hahahaha :whistle: and moved on over to show him how it was done :P

As i met him he was red faced and very andry " saying them F#####g fish they are doing my f#####g head in im gonna f#####g kill them all "  ( i wasnt laughing honstestly :whistle: ) i changed my fly to a single bibio and after a few short casts i was into my first fish of the day.  A wild resoviour brown trout.  A few casts and a few steps aside in different places i was into a few more too and sid just walked off :D :D



After that i met up with a guy which wasnt with us to see if he had his lisence ( which he did) and he had snapped off on a few rocks behind him so i gave him one of my bibios as i had a few spare amungst other flies :thumbs: and a few flies after he was into one of the very few rainbows which are in the resoviour :D


and then he was off after telling me the rugby scores which i wasnt too happy with as i had it recorded.
But it was a brilliant day and here are a few pictures for you all


What a bibio fly/heather fly

this fish ejaculated over me ready for spawning :-/



beautifull Welsh landscape
 


Mario posing for the camera once again :-O


and some more fish :D

End Of All Things Wild Brown Trout

Ah well then guys its that time of year again the brown trout season ends and but what a season it has been and what a send off it gave me :)

The day started off with me as usual phoning Mostyn to see i he was going fishing and then we had a delema, where do we fish.  We had the choice of the main river or the stream, but we always opt for the stream as we love it so much :D  We got to the water at around 12 o'clock and the conditions were perfect.  The water was back to normal levels and there was an abundance of fly life floating around such as stone fly, little olives, brook dunns, sedges and even the odd mayfly as the went on.  I started off in a double pool run on my size 12 emerging klinkhammer.  I put it up against the bank, up against big boulders where fish would normally lie in and even in the fast water and not a single touch :( Mostyn was picking pockets and i could see that he was picking up the odd few trout so i decided to head a bit further up river to where there is a lot of small but fast pockets which tend to hold some nice fish regular.  As i got there i could see that there was a few trout rising so i crept down ( nearly on my knees ) so that they couldn't see me.  I flicked a short line into some fast water and straight away i was into probably one of the nicest fish i have ever seen with spots to die for.


After that one i carried on using a short line watching out for over hanging trees and vegetation on rocks and it payed off as i must have had around 10/15 fish from them small fast pockets :D

After fishing the pockets there was a long pool with fast water at the head with a big boulder in the middle at the bottom of the run.  I didn't have a single nudge in the bottom/calm part of the pool but as soon as i got myself into the faster water  the rises was coming thick and fast but as the same as last week i just couldn't land into them and only picked up 2 fish when it should have been about 10 >:( but i didnt mind as i had a LOT of more water to cover further upstream :D

I then went upstream to see how Mostyn was doing, when i reached him he had starting doing what i was doing, fishing the small fast pockets instead of the long pools as he wasn't having much luck in them and he seemed to be doing just fine picking up a fare few trout ;)  I left him on his own and i decided to fish water that Mostyn would normally fish.  Same again, small fast pockets :D and i must have picked up about 20 fish in a few pockets.  It was fishing that good :)  i decided to give myself a rest and have some grub while i watched Mostyn fish the last pool of the day.  A lot of boulders and running water ;)

His first cast SMASH, BANG, CRASH!!!! a large fish took his fly and snapped him off rite in front of him :-o
As you can imagine he was a bit gutted hahaha but he tied on a new fly and carried on ;)  he placed his fly around rocks and up against the banks and picked up a few fish before placing his fly into the head of the pool.  As he casted his fly into the fast water there was fish after fish striking at his fly, he missed a few but still managed to land a couple too. 
A brilliant day and i cant believe that it is all over for another season :'( but now we can fill our fly boxes back up and look forward to next March 3rd for all the madness to start all over again ;)


Some nice pools and pockets :)




The rewards ;)