BIGWELL: With crystal clear water and big fish cruising, Llwyd Williamson couldn't wait to get a fly in the water.

The fishing wasn't easy, but the Black Mamba Stalker saw him catching on the Gin Pool with a Salmon Egg, with Pseudo Montana catching on the Middle Lodge Pool.

Nice to see Ron Baker from Buckingham back with us after an illness. He hasn’t lost his touch; his four fish to take home were caught mainly on a red cat's whisker with 7 more on catch and release. Harry Webb took his 2 fish on green damsels from the Lower Lodge Pool. Colin Gooch fished the crystal clear Gin Pool, which was challenging but Colin outsmarted them with his pheasant tail nymph and went on to land 6 rainbows and 1 blue trout.

Luke Bradley spent an enjoyable day re-connecting with fly fishing after a time away from it and caught 3 fish. Paul Elsworthy landed 6, Dave Glover 5, Fred Wood 4, Paul Smith took home 4, Graham Jeremiah 3, Phil Rees 2, Richard Thomas 4, Liz Cox 5, Gwynn Evans 3, John Bicknell 9 on catch and release on pheasant tail nymphs and klinkhammer.

Popular flies this week have been green damsels, small dark buzzers, cat's whiskers, black snakes, egg flies and olive spiders. We are open from 7.30 am every day.

NEWPORT AND DISTRICT SEA ANGLING CLUB: Results from Barry: 1 Dave Leader 3.43 kg; 2 Christian Tanner, 0.65 kg; 3 Steve Phillips, 0.64 kg. Top Junior: Arran Boardman, 0.54 kg.

This week the club competition was held at Barry on a blustery afternoon. Luckily the rain stayed off but the wind had a stiff chill to it. Dave Leader made it another win this week by catching two conger eels and a dogfish. Dave took all the side pools with his winning bag plus first prize. In second place was Christian Tanner who weighed in with a codling just over a pound. Coming in at third place was Steve Phillips who weighed in with a dogfish. Top junior this week was Arran Boardman who caught a pouting and a whiting to take the junior prize.

All together there were congers, pouting, whiting, codling and even a pollack weighed in.

Next week the club competition will be held at St Brides on 15/12/19, fishing times will be 07.00 am till 11.00 am with booking in taking place at Peterstone Fisheries one hour before start.

YNYSYFRO: The last week has seen some good catches with Andy Hoffrock recording several 8 fish limit bags.

Most of his fish were caught from the railings bank using a floating line and a 20 foot leader to fish a lure slow at depth. However, he also used a floating line to catch fish from the swans nest area and fish have been caught from all areas of the reservoir.

Adrian Moyse fished on Friday to find areas where the fish were for the NRFFA competition that was scheduled for the Saturday. He managed to catch fish from the woods bank, horse’s field bank and swans nest area but did not try to fish the railings bank due to the strong head wind.

The match day saw 17 NRFFA members fish this free to enter Christmas Match. NRFFA’s committee kindly supported this event with 4 prizes and some other anglers also donated prizes which ensured there were prizes for the first four anglers and for the capturer of the heaviest fish, as well as several raffle prizes.

Unfortunately, on the day of the match the fish did a ‘disappearing act’ and returns were far lower than anticipated. Only Roy Jones and Adrian Moyse managed to catch the permitted 2 fish kill bag and Adrian’s fish were slightly heavier than Roy’s to push Roy into second place. Third place and heaviest fish went to Keith Higgins with an excellent rainbow of 2lb 11ounces, while fourth place went to Martyn Rees.

It is hoped to build on the success of this competition, as although all the competitors agreed the fishing was well under par for the reservoir, they all enjoyed the friendly atmosphere and format. Hence, it is hoped that future matches will take place at the reservoir and these will be publicised on the website and at the fishery’s hut.

Successful tactics during the match varied from using a di5 combined with a short leader and booby fly to floating lines and lures. It was noted that the fish seemed to have ‘turned off’ from black coloured flies with fish being caught on cat's whiskers and yellow dancers.