Friday and Saturday 29th & 30th May - River Ithon Mid Wales

I was looking forward to this weekend away in a cottage just 2.5 miles from Llandrindod Wells with the River Ithon running through the farmers land and just a 5 minute walk from the cottage. We had stayed there last October and I caught a shed load of good quality grayling and a few brown trout, all on stick float and maggot. I had considered buying a river fly rod and associated tackle but ran out of time so just took an old 13' float rod and some end tackle along with a pint and a half of red maggot.
We arrived at the property around 15:30 and I was on the bank by 16:15. The river had a lot more water in it compared to last October and the flow was much better although average depth was still on around 2' at the most.

Nice looking stretch of the Ithon

I was expecting instant results as the 2BB stick trickled down the middle of the river and I was feeding maggot by hand but it didn't happen and there was no sign of fish at all. The water was very clear but I had hoped to catch and the end of the trott. I suppose an hour went by and then I missed what I thought was a bite but could have been the bottom. I stuck at it and began to hold back hard about 20 meters downstream and did hit a bite.

This was the result.. a small salmon parr

I had quite a few more of these and did bump a better fish just before going back to the cottage around 18:45.

The next morning I squeezed a few hours in between 09:00 and 12:00 before going out for the day with the wife.

More small salmon parr but I did get one grayling which was the main target.

 My only grayling of the trip

On reflection I think my success last time was due to low water level and the grayling shoaled up more in the deeper stretches, still nice weekend.

On the Saturday night went to the races at Chepstow (did not win anything) followed by UB40 in concert for 2 hours and was highly amused watching about 20 chaves beat the crap out if each other (glad I am old now).

Summerhayes Open on Sunday.