Minnows and Caenis

The lower beats of the Taff are absolutely heaving with minnows and they are especially apparent now they are breeding. They are absolutely stunning in all their breeding colours, if only they grew to a couple of pounds in weight.





Anyone have any good tips for a decent minnow pattern and how to fish it? I am certain that the big guys will come out at night to hunt down these large shoals.

The other "hatch" making life difficult at the moment is the dreaded caenis. small white upwings which are only a few mm long are not easy to imitate and their sheer numbers in tight balls hovering over a pool makes fishing challenging. Apparently the nymphs duns and spinners are all present for the 2 hour (*ish) frenzy as the crazed mating begins and boy do the fish feed on them. However these fish are near impossible to catch, they are almost completely fixated and have no need to move more than a few inches to gorge themselves.

I have found tiny flies completely useless amongst the uncountable numbers of the natural and tend to go for shock and awe with a large sedge. I spent 2 hours in a caenis cloud earlier this week and managed 2 trout and half a dozen out of season grayling, hard but rewarding fishing.