The Usk - April 2012

As I'm new to this I'd like to share some pictures from last year, and do my best to describe what's going on in them. This feels a bit like boring someone with my holiday snaps, but I'm going to enjoy doing it anyway.

April Usk Trout

This picture was taken mid April on the Mardy beat of the Usk (MTAA Water). It was the first decent trout that I'd caught last season and the first on the Greys Streamflex 11ft #3 that I now use frequently. I made a meal of landing it in the fast water -and on the unfamiliar light soft actioned rod- so it took longer than usual to revive.

This dry spring day was the most productive I spent on the Usk all season. There were sporadic Large Dark Olive (LDO) hatches and the fish were feeding hard on the the emerging Baetis nymphs in the falling river. I landed many trout of the stamp pictured above, most hooked in the faster water (including three from the same spot). All of the fish were caught on PTN jigs (see below) or a Baetis nymph pattern that I'd copied from Graham Rawson after seeing it pictured on Twitter.  

Rabbit PTN jig


Hook: Size 16 jig (I use Hanak)

Bead: 2mm or 2.5mm tungsten slotted nickel or copper colour (dependant on conditions)

Tail: Brown cock (less fragile than three cock pheasant barbs)
Rib: Ultrafine red wire
Body:Cock pheasant tail (coppery)
Thorax: Rabbit (well mixed blue underfur with guard hairs)




The next day I learned that many of the other Usk beats had fished  very well, especially Llanover where David Jones (a very experienced angler) had been amazed by the number of feeding fish.

A true red letter day signalling the start of a great few weeks of trout fishing on the Usk.