When the going gets Tough

I emailed Brian last night to see if he fancied another shot on his favourite spring  river , naturally he was up for more torment.  i was looking forward to fishing a march brown hatch as i'd not seen any (in any numbers) yet this year. The day looked great as we drove through some lovely countryside ,and i was really looking forward to it , but whilst setting up we realised the water was up a bit  from yesterdays rain and we had a fairly strong downstream wind to contend with. 

New borns

With the trout still prefering the slowest parts of the river , there was a severe lack of water to fish , after sitting around for an hour or so we decided to head upstream , to a big flat , which brian knew would offer a bit shelter. It really is a waiting game , and fortune plays a big part, theres no guarantees. We sat and waited, i saw a fish upstream mopping up march browns   in the edge , i felt confident i could get turnover  in the downstream wind but unfortunately i dint get the opportunity as he stopped rising ,i may have put him down perhaps he caught a glimpse of me whilst foraging for flies whilst turning back downstream , the trout are not keeping station just now there covering quite an area  . We sat a little longer the hatch wasnt big and though there were the odd march brown the olives also put in a appearance  , Brian sat it out on a intermittent riser downstream whilst i sat huddled in the bankside , just upstream , and as luck would have it a fish rose about 15ft directly across from me. He then rose again minutes later then again  so i decided  to try and feed him my shucked cdc, and   fortunately for me he liked the look of it.

We then sat a little more  a few fish rose downstream , brian covered a risere on the near bank.

He struck and the fish flew through the air.

it was'nt quite what we were expecting , most early risers tend to be a little more substantial  . He went on to take another two small trout , one on a dry and the other on the nymph.

 That was out lot, it had been a tough session . I went for a walk downstream for a few miles but didnt see any risers  , the water looked as if it was pushing through just a little too fast. It would be nice to get ideal  conditions , mild , low water the fish moving in the faster water and im sure the times will come , until then you just have to make the most of what we've got.

 

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!

I Know where You Live!!!!

I went straight from work to the  local stream today. I had a big trout swimming around in my head today the weather just felt right, and i didnt take long to find him. He was rising in the tail of a pool in a wee pocket  perhaps a foot deep  just behind a fallen tree,  to cut a long story short he took my fly in total 3 times in a 30 minute spell but it didnt touch the sides on the 4th i unfortunately broke the tippet on the strike a pity cause he looked a very good trout, but ive a feeling i'll bump into him again shortly. Hooking up with him is going to require some serious   hit and hold stick or he will be in the snags from the off , one small consolation is i know where he lives .

I did catch quite a few from 4oz up to a pound after that  . Fish were active in  most pools and the conditions were  almost perfect.  In a favourite pool i managed this lovely fish,  just short of   1 3/4 lb  , it helped ease my disapointment  . well a bit anyway.

Woodland Seasonal colours.

Yesterday afternoon it was a rare lovely day , so i decided to fish my local , things didn't get underway till 2pm so i took some pictures of some bank side colour to kill time.

wood anemone

celandine

fritillaria

The fishing was distinctly average  , the hatch quite poor for the time of year, though i manged to catch or prick what few fish were actively surface feeding. They varied in colouration  from sombre muted tones through to heavily spotted leopards .

The nymph also worked its magic in the slacker side of the runs , were definitely moving in the right direction.
speaking of nymphs i met one of the river managers who was out doing a kick sample , the riverbed is heaving with nymphs just waiting for things to warm up , looking good for the weeks ahead although these things have got a bit of a habit of hatching in big numbers when the rivers a wee bit too coloured to fish.

on the nymph

the last chance saloon

Another couple of weeks on since our last visit to this lovely stream, we were full of optimism that there might be a trout or two on the fin this time around, after picking up our permits we walked down to the bottom of the stretch and waited for a hatch to get underway hopefully!

  a few olives were sailing down and the odd march brown too but we only saw a once riser in the pool so time for a move upstream to try and find a steady rising fish. We split up for a while and met up again at the top of the beat to compare notes, pretty grim I'm afraid, Col had seen another once riser and I had spent most of my time chatting to another angler but hadn't seen anything when I was paying attention!  by now it was close to 3pm so we parted company again, Col headed back downstream and I continued on upstream on to the association water.

not even a flower to take a picture of



 I was hoping to take a look at one of my favourite pools further up but as I got closer I spotted another angler in the distance, oh well another blank I thought as I trudged back downstream towards the car dejected,  It was then when walking past a nice slow pool that I saw a riser at last on the near bank, I positioned myself downstream of him and another fish rose on the far bank, I put on a shuck cdc and made my first cast of the day in the general direction of the far bank trout! much to my surprise he took and despite me being about half an hour to late on the strike I found myself connected to a good trout at last.

he put up a good fight in the shallow water heading for some cover and I was pleased to finally get him in the net

I joined up with Col again who hadn't seen anything to go for since I last saw him.Rather than throwing in the towel just yet I suggested that we go up and see if the other fish that I saw rise might be on the fin again since the pool had time to settle down. Sure enough there was a couple of intermittent  risers on the go, they never seemed to stay put either making them very difficult to cover

col and a ewe wait patiently for the fish to rise again



 it seemed though that his chance had gone, so a switch from the cdc to a klink/nymph duo as a last resort and on que a fish rose on the far bank, slightly downstream from his position, from my vantage point I could see his klink drift down and disappear and col struck into a good fish on the nymph.

 a fine reward 

a hard days fishing on a river that is never easy at the best of times, driving home tonight along a daffodil fringed road we both knew we had been through the doors of the last chance saloon today.





Hail Hail the trouts are here!

Ive been looking forward to a trip to one of the local rivers for a few days now, i picked Brians local today and i think it may have been the wrong choice as where my local was running clear his was pretty murky.
Any way one of the benefits of doing a blog is you can see what you did in similar conditions in previous seasons so i kind of reffered to that . While i was tackling up a heavy hail storm occurred.

 
i waited for it to go off before going to a suitable pool there i sat and waited for a hatch to occur and while i did that another heavy hailstorm came down. eventually the odd  fly hatched  during the storms  just upstream a riser rose just the once , i covered the water and on my third cast he took, jump promptly throwing the hook. Looked a decent fish too.

Heading upstream i felt the hail had coloured the water further and the hatch had come to nothing  , so was feeling a little hard done by.

A few short pools up though is my favourite coloured water pool a fish was rising under a tree and then another started rising and another,this was the hatch starting proper and  it was just a matter of picking them off with a shucked cdc or turkey biot klink.

fit but fat 

 After my first 3 fish i was joined by a member of the local angling club , and i invited him to share my rod for the next few fish, by this time  a thunder storm was upon us but still the trout rose  ,i took a good few and missed a better one , he was fairly new to river angling and getting to grips with the action of my  scott rod was probably a bit unorthodox to him  ,but he was  improving every cast and   did rise a fish, i gave him a few pointers a fly before we parted company .

a few more trout before i left that pool and i headed upstream, by this time the hatch was pretty much finished and only managed another riser in another pool. Its a pity the river was so dirty i could have fished some water through with the nymphs but nice to see the fish in such fantastic condition .

Retail Therapy on a Urban stream

I was in the mood for one of the local rivers that are fishing reasonably well just now, but last nights heavy rain put them up and coloured them so I decided to have a few hours on a tiny wee overgrown stream that runs into my local river. I love little burns , they require their very own skill set to be successful on them.

I tackled up at the confluence with the main river after the odd strange looks by  passing motorists, who either    don't share my passion  of fishing these streams most probably wouldn't believe trout exist there or perhaps  on there way to a local stocked fishery for their fix . I then went about fishing with a short 8 ft leader with a dry and nymph combo. The water was clear but running a little heavier than I would have liked, and water I was fishing was really unproductive, couldn't quite work out whether it was too early yet, or their had been a pollution incident, or was i too clumsy,  I had almost resigned myself for a blank when in a non-descript run I hooked my first little fish.

I was happy to see a fish after all my misplaced  suspicions. The next pool up I hooked the undergrowth and ruined my chances, but in the next again I took a brace,  the first a typically small trout similar to the first and the next again though  a little bit of a monster for the wee burn , which bent my 2 wt double , he was a heavily speckled trout.

Further up the flow becomes less as it loses a tiny tributary. Above that found me fishing in a retail park , between Lidl and Homebase  .

 Where i startled this colourful grey wagtail who obviously took advantage of the insect life the burn .

 

Looking at their colourful plumage you would expect them to be called yellow wagtails, thier colouration reminds me of the north country spider  the waterhen bloa . Continuing up past the retail park i had to go under the railway via a tunnel , gave me the creeps when you cant see what your wading over , through the tunnel i came to my banker pool , where another two trout fell to the charms of the brown wire nymph. After that i had a short walk over the rugby field to my home.