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.
