Flogging away but with a Spring in our step!

Fishing in winter has been hard lately , what with snow, rain, high winds , coloured water and to be quite honest , I'm really longing for March the 15th to arrive so i can once again, cast a fly to the brownies again. Well yesterday the signs of spring was in the air in the guise of birdsong, i even had a pair of spotted woodpeckers fly over my head , just gives you a mental pickup that spring is on it's way. Tomorrows forecast ....... snow!

Snowdrops

Today found us once again in pursuit of the "Lady of the stream ". We were fishing by midday but what followed was a few cold fish less hours   , So eventually we decided to head upstream . The first pool we fished seemed barren. The next a giant of a pool  which is fairly featureless, getting in waist deep water there was only one thing for it but to search the pool methodically with our bugs  taking a pace upstream each cast and eventually i got a take and landed a bright grayling of 1lb 8oz. She had taken a tungsten beaded olive bug .

Brian started below me and a rise caught his eye , so he moved to the area and first cast took a fish. a bonny wee grayling just the ticket to lift your spirits and put a smile on your face, it's also nice to see smaller fish in the system it's not often you come across them .

A wee jewel

 we thought we might end up getting a succession of these fish being shoal fish  but despite seeing another riser  and throwing the kitchen sink at them we could not tempt one .

We then walked downstream to fish a pool we've never fished before , but anglers had beaten us too it, turned out to be a few gents we met before, we talked about fishing mostly about pike , and by the time we had finished it was time for home , not the most succesful of trips,  quite hard work but i really quite enjoyed it.