time out on the forgotten burn

The last couple of Friday evenings i've been exploring a little burn near by what with only having a couple of hours to spare before picking up my daughter from youth club, despite its locality its a stream i had never fished before so was keen to find out what it contained if anything! anticipation grew as i could hear it gushing in the valley below before i set my eyes on it, a clamber down a heavily wooded banking soon revealed a fast flowing little burn which was running with a little bit of colour from recent rain. 

It runs through an attractive country estate but there were still some signs that this little burn once had a more industrial past, with stone walls and man made waterfalls, i'm sure there was a mill on this stream at one time. Those days are now long gone and nature has once again taken over with moss, overhanging trees and woodland foliage.

  inbetween  fast broken water i found the odd pool 

the glister bug was the fly of choice in the murky water,  after a few missed takes on the way upstream one of the resident trout stuck

this evening was a similar story to last friday, with the burn running slightly higher with the downpour last night.

a catapult cast is all that was needed  most of the time,  i get a lot of  pleasure each time i use my Burns built rod

a bridge going back to nature

another wee fella

 a really enjoyable couple of evenings on a forgotten burn, i'm looking forward to fishing it again, could be a regular friday thing.

The curse of the new Bonnet!

Sunday saw me drowning my sorrows on my local trout stream after losing a nice trout on the Saturday   , the spate of bad luck is all down to my new bonnet of course!   I headed down to the lower beats to fish through a almost continuous ravine of cliff faces hemmed in and   canopied by trees with the occasional relic from a industrial past evident , i love this sort of litter , it just gives the place character  . Initially my bad luck seemed to continue from the Saturday when I managed to get myself in position  for a trout in difficult lie very short fast smooth run , lots of drag with a upstream reach cast required . All went well till I set the hook then surprise , surprise , he got off  my hooks seem to be made of rubber at the moment.

Off the rails!
A cart from the old claymine 

The hatch started to build and amongst the olives was a good number of olive uprights my favourite hatch of the year by a mile , a few brook duns too,  as well as the expected large dark olives , and terrestrials too in the form of black gnats there every where just now, and it was nice to finally find plenty fish on the fin, and plenty insects , made the fishing more enjoyable , and it was just a matter of picking them off with a shucked cdc .

As I was making my way upstream my pace slowed in a big flat where I've come across some really spooky trout in the past , they lie in the slack on the far side , usually mopping up stuff in the the slack , I took the lowest fish, just a wee half pounder, then focused on the next just 10 yards or so upstream . For once the hook stuck and a nice yellae belly launched himself into the air, my legs were trembling with my recent run of luck , but eventually he tired and I was relieved when I slipped the net under him.

Golden brown

The rest of the day continued in the same vain , the hatch dying out just after 4 pm . I Just hope the curse of the new bonnet has been lifted?

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.

Jewels in the Stream (also rod review)

I was planning on doing a review on a recent purchase , i was needing a new loch rod  ,so with lots of praise for this brand   i bought a Flextec streamtec 9'6" #6 , and also a 6'6" #3 of the same model  . These are auctioned on ebay by tacklediscounts for a buy it now price of £79.99 or you can get them in the auction as i did for   £40 or less.

Streamtec 6'6" #3

 Today (now yesterday) i decided to give the wee 6'6" rod a go . My first impressions were good , it comes packaged in a tube and sock , and  looks strikingly similar to a greys stream-flex , only  obvious difference and a nice touch was the coppery coloured fly keeper which compliments the olive/brown blank , and ofcourse the price tag , the cork quality is very good, couldn't fault it cosmetically apart from a few bits epoxy on the snakes , which i removed with my nail.
    Now to the fishing . I decided to give the rod its first outing on a proper wee burn. Spoilt for choice i wasn't  sure which burn to choose , so decided to sample two local burns , the Murieston water and the Linhouse water.

Below the confluence

The Murieston water meets the Linhouse at midcalder and then meets the main river the Almond  perhaps only a hundred yards or so from there confluence.

The Confluence

First of all i fished the short stretch below where the waters meet , i used  a glister bug under a klink and it didn't take long for the stream-tec to break it's duck. A typical wee brownie.

At the cofluence i decided to head up the Murieston water first , what a smashing wee burn this is , with equally beautiful little trout.

Big pool on murieston water

Murie burn trout (smudged red spots)

After fishing a hundred yards or so i turned back downstream and fished up the Linhouse. The Linhouse is the bigger of the two burns , and perhaps the peatier of the two . It too fished predictably well producing many lovely little brownies typically decorated with lots of smudged  red spots.

Linhouse weir

Despite being near some major cities , the air is clean as proved by the presence of lichens , and its a great escape, in fact I'm sure some folks wont realise just whats on there doorstep, miles and miles of beautiful countryside. , and i was content breathing in the beauty and solitude the stream offered, enjoying a lunch by a rock after landing my best trout of the day.

Ginger beer and "mans chocolate"

The rest of the day continued in the same vain. As for the rod , really like it , it may not be every ones cup of tea though as it's pretty fast , but i can see myself using this rod a fair bit.  These rods present exceptional value for those looking for a new fly rod and have many differing sizes in the range  .

making the most of it

With no fishing on the horizon for me this weekend today would be my last chance to wet a line until next week. After dropping my wife off at the airport this morning i had one or two other chores to deal with which left me with a few hours of fishing time before the kids finished school. I arrived at the burn before noon to find it running clear and a good bit lower than on my previous visit.

 encouragingly there were a few olives kicking about and the odd riser to go for, the size 12 klink seemed to be to their liking taking most of the trout today with the brown wire nymph picking up a couple too.

  the biggest of the day rose under an overhanging tree, after missing him first cast on the klink he took the nymph on the second  putting up a great scrap until i slid the net under him .

he was in great condition

i've passed this welly boot a few times now, hope there's nobody attached to the other end!

it was nice to see a Grayling putting in an appearance, they've been hard to come by on this stream of late

all to soon i had ran out of time and had to head home for school finishing, next week can't come soon enough!

Easter Monday Evening

After dinner tonight i hummed and hawed as to whether i should go out fishing or not as i was feeling a bit tired after another busy day at work, but you know what its like, once the decision was made to go i quickly gathered my gear together and was on my chosen burn by the back of six with a new lease of life!

first impression of the burn was that i had made a big mistake as the clarity didn't look great, but then a trout jumped in the pool above so maybe it would be ok after all?  first cast and the big klinky i had on dipped and i struck into a lively trout which had taken the glister bug.

 this turned out to be the way of it with the glister bug proving to be quite effective taking a few more trout in the slightly murky water.

calthia

 as the evening wore on sport went quite as i fished a couple of good pools which i thought would produce a trout or two but didn't!

there was only another two or three pools on the stretch left to fish so i thought i might as well give them  a try anyway before heading home, it proved to be worth while sticking it out as i hooked into a bigger trout which thrashed about the pool, a long lean fella which made a good evening even better.

another wee trout followed in the last pool, on a wooly bugger this time, the first trout ive taken in ages on a lure, got back to the car just before nine, the evening fishing has started!

Gale force trout

It was blowing a hoolie today , wasn't  sure what river to fish  but settled on my local as i thought it would be more sheltered. First thing to do was walk my dog , and thats when i get my first glance of the river it was looking at a good height though the wind was hitting it , the wood pecker was busy drumming on the telegraph pole , looking to attract a mate.

  It wasn't to bad down in the river valley , i walked downstream a while doing so could not help myself  having a shot at the odd riser .

The main hatch has been getting underway of late till about 2pm  so i waited till then and fished my way back upstream . Surprisingly it was a fairly sparse hatch today though it wasn't as warm day  and perhaps the wind worked against me but i managed around a dozen trout , and a even a few after the brief hatch on the nymph  ,its niceto see some trout starting to look "mint" condition.

starting to feel things are getting there now , and im sure it will only be a few weeks away before we get a much longer day fishing , which is nice , usually find a few fish as early as 11am  with even the prospect of finding a few evening risers.