Down and Dirty

orange tip

Today was a rare day! Almost windless! Fishing was on my mind i headed for a river i had not fished for at least a month maybe two!  I was tackled up and on the water by 10:30 am , unfortunately the water was heavily coloured and a wee bit higher than normal.  I immediately set up with a woolly bugger , the conditions dictated that but i drew a blank in the first few pools. I put on a extra super fast sinking poly leader  to try and get it to dig in , but that proved useless too. My confidence was starting to wean  when i looked downstream  and i'm sure i saw a rise form behind a willow. Anyway i put on a big dry A size 10 "dirty polly". A fly which has done the business in the past in coloured water. It took about 6 exploratory casts then a wee trout stuck it's nose out the water and grabbed my fly. About 4oz but i was happy , i thought i was staring a blank in the face.

I decided to persevere with the dry and look for shallow" flats" , just figured that would be my best chance with the severe lack of clarity.   I arrived at a pool that fitted that description .

Wading up it slowly a fish rose to my right, to one of the many flies , so i cast out and it hit it first cast, a fine fish around a pound  .

The pool has a slow gradual shallowing as you get nearer the head and further upstream fishing blind, another pounder, almost identical to the last fish  decided he liked the look of my dry.

Another 2 followed on the dry the best going 1lb 10oz   and one fell too the  woolly bugger.

I headed up a few pools more but the pools were a bit deep for the clarity issues, it had been a good days fishing ,educational!