Well, the location couldn’t have been any more picturesque. Jonathan picked me up at around 7am, and we made our way. We headed through the Brecon mountain range towards Builth Wells, winding our way on the a470, eventually catching up to the Wye. After a hearty breakfast roll we turned up to Buith at about 8.30am.

After purchasing our tickets, we stopped and piered over the bridge to reveal a fellow angler fishing the dry fly in the slow glide above. Watching the guy covering a riser, we got red eye and had an itch to start fishing! So we headed off down river, to the burger factory for parking.

We started fishing on the ‘fly only’ stretch of the Groe park water. We headed down to the bottom pool and set-up.

I took the 9ft 4# Airflo Streamtec and threaded my fly line through the eyes. I reeled off two feet of 3lb nylon and attached it to my tapered leader.  I then created a dropper adding another 2 feet of nylon to the cast. On the dropper, I tied on one of my favourite sedge patterns, and a small beaded nymph on the point.

The water was low, very low, and the pool which was normally 4ft+ in depth was around 3ft with a nice constant flow.

Jonathan took the rod first of all, and started working his way up the run. There where a few flies fluttering around the surface of the water, nothing major, just a few sedges and the odd dun as it was still pretty early in the day. We walked up the run, taking a few small but lively Salmon parr.

After working our way through the Parr, the flies started hatching and the fish started rising. Making a few nice casts, Jonathan missed a fish rolling over the dry fly. ‘Strike!’ I shouted, but a delayed reaction left for a missed fish. Another cast in the same area, another take! But this time, it was in the net!  A lively grayling, which was also slippery for some reason…

After this cuffufel, we headed upstream to one of the glides we walked passed earlier in the day. There was one or two fish rising there in the morning, so hopefully there would be a few more later in the day. Before we could head off, one of the local bailiffs came to check our tickets and tell us that we was here the wrong part of the day! The few days before had been boiling hot, and bright sunshine, putting the fish off throughout the day because of the brightness. We was lucky, we had persistent overcast all day, and a steady upstream breeze.

 As we made our way, we spoked a few fish from the right hand side looking upstream. Although it was too deep to get in and fish anyway, we wasn’t too worried. We walked to the top of the run where it was more human friendly, and entered the water. Within a few casts I’d hooked into another grayling on the sedge.

Taking a few more grayling out of the run, we headed towards a run which we previously (last September) took a load of good grayling on the ugliest dry fly I’ve seen. Me and Bish had high expectations of the run, knowing what he had there before, and boy did it live up to our expectations. We took a further 10-12 grayling and a few trout on the dry and a few on the nymph.

Here are some of my favourite photos for the day :-