Stick or Twist

I shook the dusting of snow off my wading boots and headed down river for 1:30pm . The  sun made a rare appearance today and although it was cold , i could feel the heat from its rays. I sat looked at a few pools the odd olive came off but not a fin stirred i wondered if i should just sit it out , then i decided to gamble and head away a mile upstream over the brae to a  familiar early season pool.

I passed  a few slowish typical early season pools before arriving at the  pool  just after 2pm .

 A fish conveniently rose in front of me with what was a fair number of flies hatching  .  A cast in front of him and he obliged taking my  biot klink , just a wee silvery fellae, but perfect.

As i was returning the fish another fish rose almost where i took the last one, then a dog walker passed and i never saw it rise again despite allowing time for it to return to the feed and covering the general area.

I decided to head back downstream in the hope that the pools may have the odd riser,  where i met a fellow angler , he hadn't seen a fish , hardly a fly , and that was pretty much  it for the day. Not the most   productive of fishing days , but any fish just now is a bonus.

Its Spring , but not as we know it

There had been yet another fall of snow last night , not as much as the night before but enough for concern. The sun though did its magic and  it thawed quite quickly .3 degrees today at its warmest point not warm but i was feeling fairly confident i would catch after seeing a riser yesterday in a blizzard. I had a lot of nasty jobs to deal with so didn't get down the river until 2:30pm.

I set up quickly with a fresh 9ft  tapered leader  , attached to that went 4 feet of rio powerflex , and my chosen fly a size 12 brown biot klink.

The river looked great,but it seemed that  i might have missed the main bought of the hatch by about 30 minutes or so as a fair number of duns  were collecting in the eddies including these. At first i put it down as a  brook dun , but now after looking at the picture  i'm convinced its a march brown.

As i headed to my chosen start pool a fish rose in the pool in inches of water. At the point of spotting it i was a good distance away and could not pin point it on the featureless flat, i waited for it to rise again , but nothing stirred , another fish rose further up the pool. I covered where i thought fish "A"  rose   and on my 3rd speculative cast he took my dry, but i missed him, as i did with fish "B"  further up the pool.

On to the next big flat pool.

Scanning for risers i saw out the corner of my eye a fish kiss the surface in the crease made by a fallen tree  on my near bank in the picture above.
No mistakes this time as i felt resistance on the strike and after a good fight i landed a fine trout , perhaps a tad lean , but otherwise in great shape just over the pound.

 Despite looking at other spots i didn't come across any other visually feeding fish , the last 20 minutes "fishing the water"  proved fruitless as it often does , at this time of the year. Hopefully get out again tomorrow and try another spot.

a little hope

The cold temperature's around just now haven't been conducive to good fishing, after failing to connect with any trout at the weekend on a normally productive burn i wasn't feeling overly confident about my chances of success this afternoon on another wee burn.

bitterly cold on Saturday

Despite a dusting of snow on the ground this morning the afternoon didn't feel to bad and the little snow that we had had all but disappeared. The wee burn was  running its usual slightly murky colour so i set up with a glister bug below a big klink.

i fished through lots of nice pools and runs without an offer, then in a slower pool a take at last and i was delighted to bring this wee fella to hand, not very big but i was so pleased to see a trout!

a little hope







icicles 

  





 i took another camera shy trout upstream from another slower pool, and that was my lot for the afternoon. Col tells me he spotted rising trout on his local river this afternoon when he was out with the dog, so all in all i feel we're slowly climbing out of the cold spell and heading in the right direction at last!



These boots are made for Wading!

This is a first on Streamside diary, but i thought I'd do a  review on one of my favourite  angling purchases  . I must state  ,I have no links to the company  and this is my own experience with the product (others may vary).

A couple of years ago. I decided to bite the bullet and spend a bit more money on wading boots , after yet another pair of boots disintegrated whilst wading  a    highland stream . Up until then it was not unusual for  me to go through 2" cheap" pairs of wading boots in a six and a half  month trout season, usually of the felt sole variety. so i decided to look for vibram soled boots, soles which i like on ordinary walking boots.  First i looked at Simms, then a bit googling i came up with these.

Orvis clearwater II with the eco-trax sole. I can't speak highly enough of them , there comfortable, give support and they can take a beating. After   almost 2 busy seasons fishing rocky  rivers , float-tubing , visits to the sea , winter grayling fishing, they are still going strong even the replaceable studs are almost untouched. Yes there is a few signs of wear but much less than expected. i would expect to get a good few more months out of them possibly another season but they owe me nothing.

Orvis have updated this boot marginally so you can find this boot currently in their sale outlet  at a good price , just under £100 they are a real bargain giving there  longevity  . Ive decided to buy another pair ,  before they disapear they are best wading boots I've ever had though ive no doubt there other vibram soled boots will also be good . One thing id recommend is to get 1-2 sizes bigger than shoe size to accommodate for the stocking foot. 

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against the odds

Yesterday turned out to be a bit of a disappointment for me, Ive been so looking forward to opening day but unfortunately mother nature had her way with  all my local burns looking like a scene from charlie and the chocolate factory what with all  the snow melt.

 On the phone to Col last night  he suggested that we try a wee burn in his neck of the woods today which he hoped would be running clear enough to fish. Today the rain was steadily getting worse as the morning went on,  and driving  through to Col's the roads were full of big puddles. I was resigned to the fact that fishing anywhere today would most probably be a total waste of time, but after a  bacon roll and a coffee at col's we decided to go and have a look anyway. We peaked over a  bridge on the burn and although the clarity didn't look perfect it looked good enough to have a try anyway. Around about this time the sleety rain turned to snow and it was coming down strong, i cant honestly remember fishing for trout on such a horrible day.

 We fished through a couple of pools fishing nz style without so much as a touch,  already we had thoughts of heading for  home and spending the afternoon tying up a few flies instead. Then my klink dipped it was a surprised  to feel a  nice trout on the end rather than being snagged! 

my first of the season on the ever reliable glister bug

this spurned us on and we continued on upstream in the steadily worsening weather



I took another which was lying in thin water on the near bank, this one as  silvery as a sea trout

 we thought of fishing another stretch further upstream but in the end decided enough was enough what with the horrible weather and headed back to the car, it was looking so unlikely but thanks to Col ive managed to get of the mark this weekend, cheers bud.

Opening Day 2013

I  was a bit hesitant whether to go out fishing at all , I'd received a email form Brian telling me the burns he had  "recced" , were coloured up with  snow melt., but what forced me out was the outlook for the week ahead which wasn't too promising with rain and snow and low temperatures forecast , today was the mild day of the week , 7 degrees and my local was running clear enough to fish though i do suspect there may have been a little snow melt present .

You can almost set your watch by the hatch , it's usually very predictable,  but today the hatch was poor only the odd Large dark olive coming off through out the few hours i was there .

I sat and waited , i had a  cast just to get the feel for it again. I walked scanning pools for risers , but nothing stirred. I was about to head for home , when  I decided just to fish the water   , i set up my usual search method   NZ style, and  i almost had a heart attack when out of the blue, a trout slurped my klink off  the surface.

A pounder

That was all i managed but it put a smile on my face , and opened my account for 2013.

pre season burn recce

With one or two burns in mind for opening day i thought i would check one of them out today with my dog Clyde. The snow on Monday has all but disappeared from where i live but this wee burn being a bit higher up still looked a wintery picture.

Clyde wasted no time in getting wet by standing on some thin ice!

despite some of the pools being iced up there's still some nice runs to fish

Clyde has a look

its running it's usual slightly murky colour

with that in mind Ive tied a few glister bugs

im not sure how responsive the trout will be with the cold water temperature but im looking forward to finding out, Clyde and i enjoyed our walk anyway,  tomorrow i think we'll check another burn out.

  

It's Starting to Wake Up

Fishing has been pretty poor  recently , a fortnight ago, the grayling  poked fun at us , this weekend the flounders pretty much did the same.

Ive been struck down with the cold , started on Friday sore throat etc , by Sunday sore head , legs,knackered today coughing and sneezing all the time,  so i took the day off work.

  The dog was pestering me to get walked so i coincided a walk down the river with what ive grown  acustomed to as early season hatch time , thats 1pm on my local, 2pm once the clocks change , you can almost set your watch for it.  Looking at a tail of a pool a disturbance caught my eye , and sure enough it was a trout rising , and another one was doing like wise just slightly further upstream  , and in the next pool again another fish rose , to a very sparse hatch of large dark olives, great to see and with 11 days till the start of the season , looks like my fears of a late start have been put to bed.
 
It spurred me into a tying mood, i had to freshen up the big stuff, the stimulators etc flies i will use in the height of summer. So got to work.
First up were the stimulators. it's a fly thats quite enjoyable to tie, proportions seem to be quite important though it's very easy to make it look wrong. I tied mine on size 10 tiemco 200R  hooks and found for the style of fly a smaller  hackle typically  for a size 14 fly was ideal for the abdomen and a one typically for a size 12 for the thorax.

Ive only tied a handful , i reckon it's all i will need , the stimulator is a fly that looks like it has no place in a uk anglers box, but for pocket water, coloured water or for just stirring up dour trout there great!

 . Next up i thought i'd do some balloon caddis sporting some rubber legs. i have some fond memories of using these years ago on a small tumbling highland stream, these ones below are tied on #12's. 

these ones below are similar , but it was the turks tarantula that is the influence  , im just too lazy nowadays to tie it, same go's for quite a few patterns , and i doubt they are any less effective in the roll.

Other high summer candidates will be the cdc and elk, and the g&h sedge, maybe a chernobyl ant . Other than that i think the summer nights should be covered .

Did a couple pike flies too, i wanted to try out my new 4/0 hooks ,  got a few new places in mind for the pike this year , which i'm looking forward too.