a river fixation

The river that Col and I fished last weekend has never been far from my mind all week, so much so that I had to take today of work to get my fix early! not that I go there expecting to catch loads of trout, indeed a lot of the time its the opposite with the educated trout laughing at my pathetic efforts to catch them.

today was no different with a hatch of march browns underway in a pool sheltered from the downstream wind. I spotted a riser on the far bank which I promptly put down with clumsy wading, no room for error on this stream. Upstream in another slow flat I spotted a couple of rising trout right in the tail, very difficult fish to cover and despite me trying my best to sneak up on them I put them down too! Fishable water was limited today with the wind and I found myself back down at the first pool again. This time I  missed one on a march brown emerger so a change over to the klink/nymph set up resulted in another take which I missed too, things were not going well! After that I jumped in the car to look at a stretch further upstream, this proved to be a total waste of time as the wind was now howling downstream so an hour later I was back on the first sheltered pool yet again! the hatch had petered out by now but there were a couple of occasional risers still to go for and at last a hook up on the nymph!

not a monster at a pound and a half, but I was so pleased to fool one at last. That's how it it goes on this river, never easy but I'm dreaming about the next visit already!