I like fishing for grayling, not as much as I like fishing the upper waters for small wild trout (or indeed, fishing any waters for wild trout), but I like it just the same. Luckily, as well as holding beautiful brown trout, the river Taff also boasts a good head of these silvery Ladies. It also allows us anglers the opportunity to fish on whilst otherwise we would have to halt our fishing in order to make way for the sexually engrossed brown trout to go about their spawning. And so, our winters are spent in the search of grayling.

Most grayling sessions are given over to the practice of short line bugging on long rods, and searching out the seams and riffles with fast sinking or heavily weighted nymphs. Quite often, however (if you are either persistent, lucky, or a mixture of both), you are granted the chance to search out these beautiful fish with a dry fly. Luckily, today was one such day.

I have, quite honestly, never before experienced such a cold days fishing. Before I’d even got my waders wet, and whilst tackling up, both hands started to feel as if someone had smashed a brick over them, and my reel even seized up due to the cold. For example, the photo below shows ice, and there was a hell of a lot more around the river banks.

However, this did little to dampen the grayling’s spirits. The sun was out, and despite the -0°C air temperatures, a good hatch of olives materialised just after noon. This is when the fishing simply caught fire.

Never before have I seen grayling take emergers and duns in such reckless abandon; and on such a cold day too. Every cast to a rise resulted in a take, and all thanks to a trusty size #20 CDC emerger.

Such days are few and far between, and even this occasion felt like a case of ‘Right Place at the Right Time’. Even so, it was a happily received start to 2009.

When I had trouble feeling my fingers and toes, it was time to head home…with car heating turned up to the max, and with teeth chattering!

Welcome to 2009 everyone.

…so much so, that I’m now the proud owner of a new digital camera (and one which will not bow out to either precipitation, or temperature). I’ll give a review of the camera at a later date.

After my last camera gave in to the elements and now sits dead here on my desk, it’s so nice to be be out shooting again. The below shots are of the river Taff in late December just this last Saturday. That trip was, more than likely, my last fishing trip of 2008. It was a tough one, and temperatures failed to rise past 0°C all day. No fish were caught between myself and Mostyn, but still, it is always a fantastic privilege to be able to fish in these beautiful (if not bloody freezing!) surroundings.

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas, and I wish you all the very best for the New Year! I have a good feeling about 2009…and it’s going to bring lots of fish.

With the ’shortest day’ taking place this past Saturday, trout bums across the UK are beginning to feel a little less depressed with themselves. What with the start of the trout season now only 70 days away, it is the time of year that shows us that, the once dim light that used to represent a far away goal at the end of a very dark tunnel, isn’t really that dim anymore. In fact, it is starting to glow quite confidently.

First of all though (before we are able to go fishing for brown trout whilst having forgotten what numb fingers and toes feel like), I would just like to wish everyone a very merry, and happy Christmas, and a wonderful new year!

Thank you so much for your support throughout 2008, it is oh so appreciated. I hope you all continue to enjoy both the main blog, and the newly added Forum.

I look forward to fishing, chatting, and maybe even drinking with you in 2009!

Merry Christmas!

I notice Tom Chandler over at Trout Underground has posted some amazing pictures lately! This guy knows his stuff, and is a bit of a celebrity in the world of fly fishing blogs. Gave me goosebumps just looking at the photos. Thankfully, we haven’t got weather like that hitting us here in South Wales just yet. I hope you layered up Tom!

Another couple of top blogs that I’d recommend to anyone not able to be out fishing would include The Urban Fly Fisher by Alistair Stewart, North Country Angler by Matthew Eastham, and The Nadder Diary by Malcolm.

In my opinion, these four are the finest fly fishing blogs around. Enjoy.

Tick, tick, tick…

I would just like to make you all aware that over the next week or so there may be intermittent issues/downtime in regards to Fly Fishing in South Wales due to a few major upgrades, maintenance, etc.

Basically, it looks as if my web hosting company is ‘going under’, and so I’ve decided to move away from them in order to give me time to move the blog/forum over, and allow me the time to test them well.

Please bear with me during this time, I hope to have the site up and running very soon, but there’s a LOT of work I’m going to have to do to pull it off…this way, I get to work in IT for practically 24 hours a day! haha

Stay tuned.

EDIT @ 15/12/2008: Well, if you’re reading this edit, things have gone well, and you’re now viewing the site on a brand new server, safe and sound in the wonderful UK.

As I’ve migrated the web site onto a new platform, I’ve taken this opportunity to upgrade the background systems which run both the blog and forum. This should allow two things, 1) Fly Fishing in South Wales should now be more robust/reliable and less prone to down-time as per my new web hosts promises, and 2) I should now (hopefully) be able to spend less time on maintaining the site, and more time on the river!

To renew your passwords, please click here.

If anyone has any issues renewing, please email via the Contact page, and include your username and email, and I will reset it manually.

POLLUTION INCIDENT

On Sunday 07/12/2008 (and thanks to an FTAC member) the Environment Agency were notified to both a pollution incident and a fish kill on the river Taff, specifically, at the Nantgarw Industrial Estate. The ‘Northfall Outlet’ has been an ongoing issue for years, and once again, a pollutant has leaked into the river killing what looked to be salmon parr, and fry. The outlet in question is situated underneath the footbridge behind Fabric World/Pottery Pub, and the incident looks (hopefully) to be a localised one.

The Environment Agency have been notified of this issue many times, however, the pollutants keep entering the system. Therefore, [the Environment Agency] have now promised to investigate further, in conjunction with Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water), by using cameras, etc in an attempt to finally pin down the source of the pollutant.

Updates on this issue will be made as and when they become available, both here on the blog, and also in the River Taff Reports section.

Browsing the voluminous entity that is the World Wide Web, I stumbled upon this little beauty of a web site from our cousins across the pond – Third Year Fly Fisher.

Third Year Fly Fisher utilises a photo blog/journal to detail Robert Thompson’s fishing exploits throughout the 2008 trout season over in the US.

If you’re missing your trout fishing, this’ll have you salivating in no time.

www.thirdyearflyfisher.com

An apology for the lack of fishing posts of late; but the fishing has just been that good that I’ve not had the time to write much. That said, I shall be spending a nice few hours at my desk over this coming weekend to write up a few reports, and also, there will be a few gear/book reviews added.

All of the reviews coming up can be seen in the new Reviews section, viewable via the Reviews tab at the top of this page.

I’ve also had a few camera problems over the last month (hence the lack of photos). As the temperatures have dropped, my camera seems to want to curl up and die every time it’s taken out and used in the cold. It works fine at home and in the warm, although while attempting to take a photo of a quality fish last Saturday in -3°C temperatures, it simply wasn’t having any of it, and switched itself off. Rather rude I thought.

Luckily, Santa is involved in a new camera investment, and one which will laugh at the feeble efforts of my current, being able to withstand temperatures of -10°C. A nice bonus of the camera is that it will be totally waterproof for underwater shots, and able to with withstand some pretty hardcore knocks and drops. Well…so the USPs say. Time will tell.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words…so here’s a selection of highlights from my 2008 trout season on the beautiful streams of Wales…in thirty thousand words. I love small streams.