Back on the Local

It's been a long time since my last trip to my local. High water levels or poor clarity and piking are a few   reasons for lack of visits. Today i managed to fit a trip in. It was great plenty action on the duo, i went for a GH harelug with a peacock glister thorax , held up by a size 10 klink , but in some bits i had to sacle down to a  size 16 klink, whilst in others they were more confident in taking whatever was put in front of them. I must have had around 30-40 brownies up to a pound ,

a single seatrout ,

and a rarity a few salmon parr,

which reminds me , the next spate should follow a trip down with a few Allys shrimps cause you just never know....... !

Chernobyll revisited

What a frustrating trip! I kept dropping fish incuding one which looked quite sizable. Still i will keep going back , theres something thats got me hooked on this burn and i think it's the potential for a big fish! Still managed a few fish , to  just over the pound.

And heading upstream the burn split ,i took two fish in one of the feeders , the later was a nice one. An evening of mixed fortunes.

A Tough Day piking!

Piking again,Myself and Brian  fished really hard all day, from 9:30am  till 5:30pm , Brian had had a few half hearted lunges at the fly at various parts of the day, but the last hour was the best.
Brian landed this chunky pike , and the pike bit back and gave him a whack on the nose, ouch !

Pike Tyson

Not much after that i hooked a pike, but dropped it immediately, then hooked up shortly after landing a long slender fish.

A hard days fishing  , physically as well as difficult,pike are moody creatures , looks like thy were starting to switch on in the early evening , but we were knackered a fish each was a fine reward for our efforts. 

Extreme Tubing!

Dragonfly in pike colours

The recent rain scuppered this weekends plans for a day on a river, all sepa's data was showing them at very high levels so it was either a loch for trout, which would have been enjoying , fishing the heather fly fall. Or a day hunting the pike. So wee opted for option 2.
The water looked perfect, haven't fished it for many years now. We pumped up the tubes , set up the rods etc.
And before launching the tubes we decided to fish the shoreline, Brian was into a wee jack, at least it was a start! He was using a hot orange fly (aka Phil Collins)

So it was off into the tubes. Brian moved a few on his fly so i changed to a similar fly. But it was a few hours in before i got my first take . I took a fresh fly from my box , cast it out and it lay static on the surface, when a pike made the perfect  head a tail rise and picked it off the surface, it was a big one too, . But after a good battle he ploughed into one weed bed too many and slipped the hook. Ocht well! Brian  again was getting the odd take , I'd here him swear, as they through the hook. Before long i was in again, another good long battle, i landed this fish.

A happy man!

It wasn't long after that Brian hooked up , at first i thought it was a jack it took so gently but then it woke up.

An even happier man!

What started of a slow day sport wise was turning out quite good. Again i hooked up and this fish was something serious, i hooked it in open water, and it ran and ran all the way into the backing and after playing and being towed  for at least 5 mins it all went solid, as it went in to a weed bed. I went over to investigate freed the snag by hand by coming out the other side of the weed bed that's when i felt the fish then i lifted the rod and it all went slack as the pike  spat out the fly. That must have been a monster, it couldn't have been anything else!

Getting Beat up

After that i was knackered , playing these pike and casting these flies all day is hard work so i went over to Brian for some lunch. Brian had a few more jacks for the day. We left contented, glad to revisit some sport with pike on the fly!We almost forgot how much fun it is!

nb:Top flies today were red/ orange!And Authanic wire is the dogs baws!

2 hrs In Chernobyll

The forecast is for rain tommorow, it's done nothing but rain lately, so i was keen to get in a bit sport,  i looked at a burn locally yesterday , it looked nice, but i opted for another local, one i call the Chernobyll  burn. I arrived at 18:45pm , on arrival i was glad to see the burn looked in   fine fettle with good clarity, it was very warm to the touch and even better a few fish on the fin!

As i wandered up this corridor of trees, i missed a fish but the next one i managed on a dirty polly, a wee one . The next fish again took a cdc and elk.  A pounder a fine fish for a burn. As i carried on up the pool I decided to stick on a nymph as i'm sure I must have been by-passing lots of non showing fish, so i put on a prince nymph and promptly hooked and landed a beauty of 1 1/4lb that took the nymph.

followed by a few on the dry.

fat troot

 Carrying on up the water i had fish in the fast bits on a GH sedge, then in a flat i spotted a good head and tail riser, i didnt get near him before i put him down but i know where he lives.

  A few more risers were found i decided to scale down to a 14 for risers, i promptly lost a good fish over the pound ,then took a few smaller ones.

The sport just kept getting better with a few more just over the pound. I'm sure if i had more time there might have been the possibility of a monster, this  burn is full of surprises. But a dozen trout averaging a pound in a 400 yd streatch of a wee burn is some fishing! I'll be back as soon as the next lot of spates start to fall! Another thing the wee "Burn Raider" 2# rod was just fantastic for playing those hard fighting fish, it has great dampening qualities for protecting the tippet, yet has the power to pull fish (with side strain) away from snags , and there is no shortage of them in the Chernobyll burn!

Splodging about!

Should've known better, than to step out the house. But somehow i didn't think the burns would be that badly affected by the rain. So when i saw it though i was surprised it was fair pushing through , so much so that a burn that would normally tickle my ankles was a raging torrent that i would not wade.

So i went to look for slack water. It was scarce, but on a bend i eventually found an eddy .

So i spent some time here. First i tried big dries , then i put on a olive fritz  bugger , and picked up a brace of trout.

After that it was time for home . Too wet!

On a highland stream

A longish  journey down narrow singletrack roads eventually saw us at out Chosen location.It is simply Stunning!

It took us a while to find our stride but eventually we started getting takes .Brian was first of the mark with this wee fellae.

I then took a trout in the next pool , then Brian was in again.

After landing a fish of 3/4lb, we both went through a bad spell of dropping and breaking off in fish some  good ones too.
Then there was a group of falls we didnt fish any of these pools but above them the river seemed to change character . The pools were fewer but pocket water was plentiful, I took atrout imediately above the falls then Brian no concentrating dropped what i think was a better  fish on the nymph. In to the pockets where i decided to fire on a stimulator and it was working great taking a good number of fish from the pocket water up to a pound.

Then i heard" awwwwww! Massive!" Followed by hurling his rod into the bankside. Brian had been bust by a big troot, atleast 3lb on his stimulator !
The rain came on pretty heavy , we never had jackets and we got soaked! It'll be a while before we return to this haven , but there is some revenge to be saught with these troots a few more troots landed would have made this trip one to remember, as it stands maybe it will haunt us. 

A Muggy Night

Very hot, even though overcast today. The grass is always greener, is a phrase that is fitting . Ive neglected my local recently, don't know why probably because it's the school holidays, and theres a good chance of bumping into undesirables. Anyway tonight i decided to go to a stretch which was my favourite a few years ago. Other stretches seem to have more attraction to me and to most, but tonight i wanted soltitude, as i do on most ocassions.   I fished NZ style with the occasional chuck with the wooly bugger, there was a slight stain in the water although the further upstream i went it did seem to get clearer, but it was enough to convince me that a prince nymph would be a better bet than the usual wire nymph . Finding a decent sized fish has been difficult on the river this season , yes theres been plenty pounders but nothing much better. The prince nymph started picking up fish from the off, my second fish fought hard, and it was a belter, just a shade under 2lb , it had a fly in it's mouth a wire nymph, turns out my pal Gary lost it the day before!

Just shy of 2lb

Had plenty other fish of a good stamp, mainly to the nymph but the odd one on the klink. Despite the muggy conditions there was no great hatch and risers were relatively scarce.

1 3/4lb

A good stamp