salmon on a single-handed rod
At the end of June, heavy rain pushed the river skywards again, which should have encouraged sea trout and salmon to come in off the tide.
At the beginning of July a spell of dry weather allowed the river to fall off again and by 6th July the river had returned to 0.54m (Manley Hall gauge), which is a good level for night-time sea trout fishing.
It had been a warm (20oC) & cloudy day and everything looked promising for an after-work fishing session on the Welsh Dee.
This time I chose to fish Rodens Hall & Captain’s beats at Bangor-on-Dee because I had work the next day and it’s a shorter drive home than the Llangollen beats.
I parked at Rodens Hall, with the plan of fishing my way up to the top of Captain’s beat for trout and grayling. Then at dusk, working my way back to the car while fishing for sea trout.
Up from the car park, the first pool I stopped at was the Channels. Here I fished down through the run with a team of wet flies on 3lb copolymer leader (point: size 14, March Brown spider; middle dropper: size 14, Black Hopper; top dropper: size 14, Iron Blue Dun).
There were a few fish rising close to the end of this pool; eventually, I hooked one on the March Brown – a small roach!
Next, I moved upriver to the pool above the 1st style – the run into Eel Cottage. I fished through it with the wet flies and towards the tail a fish, in the 3lb bracket, swirled at the flies just in front of the submerged snag. I covered this fish a few more times but didn’t manage to stimulate any further interest.
In the tail of the pool above noticed a few fish were taking flies in the surface layers. Therefore, I moved up to target them with the wet flies and this yielded a couple of grayling (ca.20cm), which took the Iron Blue Dun.
The evening was now starting to draw in so I made my way to top of the Captain’s beat to fish the glide while the light started to fail.
Running through the glide with the wet flies produced two more grayling, one to the March Brown Spider and the other on the Black Hopper.
It was starting to get dark quickly so I switched over to fishing for sea trout with a 10lb leader, sporting a size 8S Joe Pye on the point and a size 10S Olive Muddler on the dropper.
At about 9.30 pm I moved down to the next pool and started fishing slowly down from its head with the sea trout set-up. After about 20 metres I reached the first outcrop on the far bank, which I think is part of an old submerged wall.
As my fly drifted away from the bank I made a small upstream mended in the line and immediately afterwards, there was a surface swirl, the line tightened and something powerful went off downriver. After a couple of metres of line had gone, I lifted the 6wt, single-handed rod and it bent double into a big fish.
The fish went down to hug the bottom and I could feel the powerful kicks of its tail – this felt more like a salmon than a sea trout.
After a good 30 minutes of “cat and mouse”, getting the fish close to the bank before it went off downstream again, I finally managed to net a fresh run salmon (14.5lbs).
my first salmon on a single-handed rod
This salmon had fallen for the Joe Pye sea trout fly.
I fished through the rest of the pool to just above the tail, which produced a couple of swirls to the flies – probably trout or grayling. After this, I call it a day and make my way back to the car with a big smile.
Another blank on the sea trout front but I was extremely happy with my surprise catch of a salmon on a single-handed rod.
Tight-lines till next time, Andrew
If you are interested in fly fishing on the Welsh Dee there is some excellent Day Ticket water at Llangollen and Bangor-On-Dee.