A Day With Hywel Morgan On The River Wye

A day with Hywel Morgan on the awesome River Wye! By David Smith

Friday 28th August 2009

For my birthday a few weeks ago now, I was given a days fishing 1 to 1 with Hywel Morgan. Hywel is my fishing hero; he’s my favourite fisherman and the angler who I model my fishing style and tactics on. Now, for those who don’t know, he is possibly one of the best fly fishermen on the planet. These are some of the titles he has amassed:

•    World Games Accuracy Casting Champion
•    European Distance Casting Champion
•    European Silver Medallist (Accuracy)
•    14 British casting records
•    6 times All Round British Champion
•    Over 100 British Individual titles
•    World Record holder for multiple casting (66 rods cast simultaneously)

I had arranged that we were to fish the Upper Wye or Upper Severn (according to conditions). After work on the Thursday my Dad and I travelled up to our hotel in Rhayader. The morning came and we were awoken by Torrential downpours, this wasn’t just heavy rain, this was a deluge! Welsh rivers are notoriously known to colour very easily (making fly fishing impossible) and even more extreme, flash flood at minutes notice!
Upon meeting Hywel (In the downpour!), he said that he travelled through Hailstorms and torrential rain! Hywel told us that it would be unlikely to even be able to fish the rivers, however, we decided that the best bet was to have quick look at the Wye as it was only a few hundred yards from the Hotel in the off chance that it would be fishable, miraculously, the water was at normal level and even more miraculously, the water gin clear, Perfick for having a dabble on the fly.

We headed off to get our permits and the rain soon cleared, we had occasional brief showers during the day but nothing too heavy, the only thing that was against us was a strong wind with some strong gusts!

At 10am we finally arrived at our stretch of river we were to fish for the day, this being a several hundred yard long stretch of the Wye by Builth Wells. Set up with my Greys 9’ 5weight rod Hywel set me up and put me straight onto New Zealand Style Nymph tactics. I had a team of 3 flies with a Etha Foam Dry Fly on the top dropper (merely to act as a Bite indicator), a small Goldhead Olive Nymph and on the point, a Goldhead Redspot Caddis Nymph. (Below: Hywel setting me up for our first run through)

First run through, and within seconds of the flies hitting the water, the indicator fly disappeared, striking into it and then a small scrap later bought a stunning Wild Brown Trout of 10oz to the net, this being caught on the point fly.

Within, 5 minutes, again, I had another take, this time it was far smaller. It scrapped around as if it were a Brown Trout however, when it came to my hand, I could see the Dorsal fin of a small Grayling. This was my first ever grayling, again, this was on the same fly and it weighed in at perhaps 5oz. Apologies for the poor photo taking a picture of a fish only a few inches long from 30yrds doesn’t give the best resolution!

After that, the fishing died I had another Brownie of a similar size and then for perhaps 10minutes so Hywel immediately changed me onto an area of fly fishing that was alien to me, using a braided system. This was using 3 heavily leaded Goldhead Nymphs and fishing an extremely short line. A small braided leader was used to allow enhanced bite detection. On his demonstration cast so he hit into another Small Grayling of a similar size. (It’s a really fun method to fly fish and to anyone who’ll fish a large enough river, I thoroughly recommend it!)

For the next hour or so I fished this method and had several fish. I caught what was quite possibly the smallest ever grayling in the entire River Wye; it was perhaps 2 inches long!
Shortly after, I had a couple more Grayling of 5-6oz. I have to say, that these, despite being very small fish do account for a remarkably good fight. They fought like they were a fish of perhaps 2 or 3 times there size! On this method, I even caught a Salmon, being only a parr it was only perhaps a mere 2oz. I’m sure within a few years that fish will be a mighty fish and worthy quarry! By around 11:45 or so, the fishing on the bit of river had died down considerably, bites were becoming few and far between. Hywel got us to then move upstream 100 yards or so. He said there were fewer fish in this section however, the average size was a bit bigger, but not much.

To start off work on this section I started on the New Zealand Nymphing. After a very short while, I had my next fish, again, now my second salmon, this was taken on the point fly and even smaller than the first!

Things died down again for a bit, but Hywel suggested to stay there as he’d had his biggest ever Wye Brownie from that spot. So I continued to persevere at that one spot. The winds were continually blowing making line turnover and pin point casts very hard! As I said earlier the Dries we were using we merely to act as indicators to the notorious finicky bites of wildies and grayling. However, despite the strong winds a Wildie still took my dry, this time an etha foam Parachute fly with an orange hackle. This one fought far more than any of my other Wildies I had caught so far, and it even called for a net! So, I slipped my new under the fish and a Brown Trout weighing in at perhaps 1lb was landed.

Now, a lot of you who maybe reading this would say that a 1lb Brownie is a small fish, smaller than a lot of the Brownies that come out of the Ver  down at Moor Mill. That is true, but remembers; on the Ver they are getting a fair bit of bait come in from anglers. Here, bait fishing is prohibited and the fish are relying on the natural supply of food. This means that the average size Brownie in there is perhaps 4oz-10oz, a 1lber being a good fish! (Below shows the fish in the net!)

Hywel then saw a fish rise behind a rock across the river from me, he suggested its worth a cast so I cast over and as the fly gracefully landed on the water, so an even bigger Brownie snaffled at the fly! This was bigger still; it even managed to start taking some line!

After a super 5minute micro battle, so a good Brown Trout came to the net. This was somewhere between 1lb 8oz- 2lb. Hywel has fished this stretch of river for many years and the biggest Trout to have come out the stretch was perhaps 2lb 4oz-2lb 8oz, this made the trout one of the biggest fish caught out of the stretch this season, not bad for someone who, 18months ago hadn’t even cast a fly before, let alone fishing for wild Brown Trout on the Upper Wye! The fish was absolutely stunning!! Again, it took the Goldhead Redspot Caddis. Below shows the Wildie.

By this time it was around 2pm and so stopped for a snack and a drink. Here, Hywel suggested that we fish slightly further upstream still as he’d seen 5 Wildies rising, along with a couple of Grayling in the shallows.

There was no obvious hatch so he said that they might be quite frustrating to catch. To combat this, off came the New Zealand Nymphs and on came a size 20 Olive F.Fly. These fish drove Hywel and myself round the bend. This was to such an extent even Hywel himself took out his rod and tried fishing for them. After 1.5hours I finally managed to hook into one, this being the best Grayling of the day at perhaps 8oz, as I released my fish back, so Hywel had 2 fish, a Brownie and a Grayling in quick succession both around 6oz.

At 4pm so the heavens opened, the river started to rise at an alarming rate and so we had to get back out of the river and end the days fishing. This report doesn’t do the days fishing justice. In the end I had 4 Brownies, 5 Grayling and 2 Salmon. My dad had 4 Brownies and 2 Grayling, whilst Hywel had 2 Grayling and a Brownie.
We all had taps every 2 or 3 casts, and my dad and I both lost half a dozen to a dozen fish each. It was a truly special day, and one of, if not my best days fishing ever.

At the end of the day, 2 extremely happy faces. Hywel is a top notch guy, he is a superb fisherman, he’s a down to earth friendly guy, his helpful tips throughout the day are superb and he does everything he can to ensure that you A) Have a great day and B) Don’t go home with a dry net. He’s not cheap, but I cannot rate him high enough. Anyone who wants to have a guide on most Welsh rivers or the Anglian Reservoirs should look first and foremost to Hywel Morgan.

20 minutes after leaving, I had a text from Hywel saying he’d just gone past the river and it in flood and chocolate brown!

Talk about perfect timing!