mixed fortunes

On arrival at the river yesterday afternoon it was dull with a surprisingly cool downstream wind, definitely a day to be wearing the wading jacket, a stark contrast to the time before when it was calm with bright sunshine.

a lovely day the last time out, but not for fishing!

after working in the morning i wasn't feeling particularly lively so i left Col who walked downstream a distance whilst I sat down at a good pool close by waiting for a hatch to hopefully get underway, 2 o'clock came and went with still no signs of life so i decided to fish the run at the head with the klink/nymph duo. I wasn't enjoying myself much to be honest,  thoughts were in my head that maybe i should take a run in the car and fish a smaller tributary with the wee rod instead, at that point the klink went under and i lifted into a weighty fish, time to wake up! the fish shot downstream but  i was able to follow him and shorten the distance, things were fairly under control after that except for some weed close in but i managed to keep him out of it and get him in the net.

 

my mood had now changed somewhat so with renewed optimism  i wondered off downstream  looking for some risers, taking in the wild flowers on the way.

forget me not

lady's smock

A hatch of sorts was underway with the swallows busy taking olives of the surface in a fast run but risers were few and far between and not steady when i did see any. I returned to the pool i started off on fishing the duo in the head again and picked up a couple on the nymph, i also had what looked like a decent trout turn away from the big klink at the last gasp.

 With the afternoon moving on Col had made his way back upstream to where i was fishing, he was gutted having hooked into a big trout which had taken his klink only to loose it a couple of minutes into the fight, the trout thrashing about on the surface when the tippet gave way. We all know the feeling and its not nice, that teamed up with another couple of missed chances, it wasn't to be his day. We fished another couple of pools taking a grayling and dropping a wee trout before calling it a day, we'll be back soon i guess.