Dollies river

Today the weather was forecast to be hot  , 25C, so i decided to avoid my original planned venue and picked a tree clad river for shelter from the blazing sun.

A first visit to the river for me. I'd walked it's banks through the winter 2 yrs ago , and always meant to get  round to fishing it and today i finally did. I arrived at 11:30ish , was set-up and fishing by 12am. Had to work out the tactics today so went of to look for a feeding fish  , a few were feeding together i cast but they they turned there nose up at my size 14 klink , i imediately went down to a 7x tippet and a smaller size 16 klink and hooked a fish , but he got off heading for a sunken tree, and leaving my fly in the branches. Somehow the next 3 fish also shed the hook, but i'd found a rythym. A big pool then produced  a few trout some on klinks  and a brace on a nymph.

Plenty fly life around. heres what looked to be a hatch of grannom, though  a few spinners were falling on the water every so often. I headed up to a weir pool fished a little further but only got one fish above the weir . it was pretty dead.

So i headed back downstream to  fish well below where i started. As it was a country park and a nice day there was kids playing in certain pools, groups of neds , pumping out music, was starting too think it was a mistake, coming down here. I started walking through a gorge section tried to walk down to the river side but they were shear cliff faces. so i carried on down river until i could access the water. This section was a bit daunting to fish , i was in a corridor with walls of  towering sandstone cliffs , here and there ledges were visible ocassionally plunging into unknown depths an element of rockclimbing is required here and there whilst clasping a rod with your teeth. With the difficult terrain I dont think many of this water will see a fisherman from one season to the next despite being a stones throw from a major city.

It was not the most productive stretch, maybe the lack of light , is a factor, the nymphs drew a blank even where it looked ideal, but the dry did sort out those rising fish. I was glad to come out the other end without a ducking. coming out the gorge the fishing improved again . It had been a great day, challenging enough at times to  hold my interest, i'll definitely return, but i think i'll give the gorge  a miss!

gorge fish