Llangynidr bridge
River Usk at Glan-yr-Afon.
April 20th
Spring is a variable season in Britain. Last year April was warm and sunny. This year it has been very different. The weather though seems to have had little effect on river life. Creatures must still get on with their lives, and it seems that for many their clocks are set by day length not temperature. Reports of big hatches of Grannoms had me driving to the Usk in the hope of some sport, even on a cold, grey, dank day.
The Grannoms failed to show, but Large Dark Olives trickled off the river all day. The trout rose sporadically. It was teasing, frustrating and yet pleasurable. No trout ever settled into a rhythm of feeding. So the location of each rise had to be memorised. Easier said than done. Then the fish were surprisingly picky about the kind of artificial offered them.
However when a fish did decide to take the dry or nymph, it was all the more satisfying. The brown trout of the Usk are lovely fish. They have a red sheen to their upper bodies to match the red rocks of the river bed. I wonder whether the colour is adaptive camouflage or hereditary, after thousands of generations of living in this river? The trout shared the olive hatch with the elegant, newly-arrived swallows and the grey Wagtails.
Llangynidr bridge