Breath of Fresh-air

Rain had scuppered plans to fish my usual, it was windy, had a few feeder burns in mind but decided on the bigger but fewer fish burn, not that it contains monsters just modest brownies although the occasional 1lb'er can be caught, and at the backend a few bigger again.

When i arrived i couldn't believe it was low and fairly clear with a slight ochre stain. Hawthorns and blackgnats were very  plentiful a few olives hatched various species and one or two brook duns hatched too, plenty fodder in this burn!

Armed with my wee 6'6" rod , I set-up with whats becoming my usual NZ style, a big size 10 klink and a nymph, imediately i felt i should scale down , so changed to a 12 with a size 16 biot nymph with a black bead . it was'nt long till i was into my first fish ,a "riser" which found my nymph more to it's preferance than my dry.

Infact most fish felll for the nymph , in one deep pool i put on a bigger bead , but in most it was too heavy. If i did not get a take in these bigger pools i found it was worth while sticking a wooly bugger or Arctic  fox minnow through before moving up the pool, again it was fairly productive.

As for the dries, with hawthorns and blackgnats on the water in there hundreds you might expect a black fly to work but that was not my experience . Far better was a olive imitation , a comparadun taking fish and probably the best general purpose dry in my box the cdc and elk was devastingly effective.

A fine day a good choice for such a windy day better than being on a big river constantly fighting the breeze.