roaming in the gloaming

When i arrived on the river at the back of seven last night it was a perfectly still evening,  i could see spinners in the air and there was the odd riser to be seen,  it was still quite bright so i fished some streamy water first with the klink/nymph duo and took a small trout before walking downstream towards a favourite pool of mine, before i got there i got chatting to a bailiff on the river who was out checking for permits, he was a mine of information knowing the river like the back of his hand, we talked about many things including night time fishing and also the rivers pike , sounds like it could be worth trying for them with the fly rods some time.

a nice evening for a balloon trip

 as the sun began to set the trout began to rise in good numbers

 i was getting a good response from the trout with the shucked cdc and the little black deer hair fly i was using last Sunday,  missing a lot of fish but landing a few as well.

they fought really hard in the gloaming

with the best of the rise over and an early start in the morning i reluctantly had to leave, after talking to the bailiff i could see myself trying a proper night time session when i don't have to work the next again morning.

  

extra terrestrial

Today i headed west again to the river  with it's unique speckled brown trout, i wasn't feeling overly optimistic about my chances though as there was  a strong downstream wind to contend with and it was also quite bright, but you know what it's like, you don't know until you go!  I arrived at the river some time after twelve which i thought was probably a bit early but at least this would give me time to walk downstream at a leisurely  pace before working my way back up to the car. That was the plan anyway but much to my surprise the tail of the pool nearest the car was alive with rising trout before i walked anywhere, for once a downstream wind was doing me a favour blowing hawthorns on to the water and the trout were queueing up to take them of the surface, luckily i had some black dirty Polly's tied up which did the trick taking a nice trout just over the pound and another just under under.

it was all going so well... until a combine harvester and convoy of John  Deer tractors entered the field next to the pool i was fishing, not surprisingly the noise seemed to put the fish down except for the odd intermittent riser so i thought i would have a wonder downstream.

i was hoping to find some more Hawthorn feeding fish but didn't find any, i did however take a couple of wee fellas on the klink/nymph duo, and lost what would have been the trout of the day from a fast run on the nymph, never mind!

poppy's

 i persuaded a lady bird to have a look at my rod

at the back of four i ended up at the pool i started of the day on,  there was still the odd riser to target, i lost a trout before taking one on a wee dry which was tied up with lochs in mind, seems to work on rivers too!

Back at the car i decided to have a look at a tributary on the way home, its a strange little stream, it meanders it's way down through meadows before it reaches the main river. With a sandy bottom and  very little rocks  it's trout are ultra spooky and difficult to approach with the high banking's,  I found this out a one evening last week when I managed to put every trout I saw rise down despite my best efforts to keep of the skyline.

growing in the meadow

 foot prints

it was a lot lower than last week too which would make it even trickier,  i walked  up from where it enters  the main river but their didn't seem to be any signs of rising trout, i was thinking it was most probably going to be a waste of time when i spotted a riser at last which went a couple of times, i put the little deer hair dry over him and he took it with confidence,  he fought like a trout twice his size, a nice fish just over the pound to end the day and a victory for me after my failings last time out.

   

Some Pics from last week

Ive been testing out my new camera over the last week , it's a olympus tough 830 which being waterproof  should be ideal for wading the salt or just the usual once (or twice) a season ducking in the river.
Fairly pleased with the results . The fishing this week has been on falling and still slightly coloured rivers and most fish have been locked onto terrestrials mainly hawthorns and black gnats.
Some shots:

dusk fishing

Some experiments with underwater shots.

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  .