Restoration

If recent visits to the Eamont have been all about intensive fishing and sometimes hectic action, then last night was something else altogether. The weather has turned full circle and presents us with bright sunshine and temperatures into the mid twenties. Perfect evening rise conditions in fact; except I get the feeling that the fish are still playing catch up and haven't yet made the transition to feeding right through until dusk. Everything about the river was hesitant - to rise or not to rise, to hatch or not to hatch? We hung around until nightfall waiting for the dinner bell to ring but left disappointed - a couple of fish only, our reward for a few minutes spent nymphing the streams.

Still, it was by no means a wasted journey. After a week at work when it has felt at times as if my head has been crushed between the jaws of a vice, it was welcome relief to bolt for the hay meadows of Edenhall and the calming company of Bob and Mark. On such evenings it is often enough simply to walk the banks, savouring the smell of larch and freshly cut grass; or to recline amid the wildflowers, on the lookout for rising trout whilst the shadows lengthen. It was a hot, muggy evening with little angling done, and little to report. But it provided much needed escape for me and I returned home restored.

Two evenings on the Eamont

You may need to click on the above photo to view at full size, but hopefully you can see the surface of the River Eamont carpeted in olives. This was the sight which greeted me on a recent afternoon visit. The pool in question is broad - maybe 50yds across - uniformly knee deep, and stretches for maybe 100yds of the delightful lower river...and from my arrival at 4pm its entire surface was thick with olive uprights, pale wateries and medium olives for almost two hours. And as you might expect, the dry fly sport which followed was something special; the trout threw caution to the wind and fed hard, enabling me to get close to them even on such a smooth, shallow pool. A cdc olive was all that was required to raise almost every trout I covered and although I dropped a few, I caught more than enough to keep any angler happy - mostly 10-12" fish, but with a couple of slightly better ones, such as this which weighed a couple of ounces below the 2lb mark and went absolutely beserk in the shallow water:

It wasn't difficult fishing by any means, and I was reminded of the joy of river trouting at this most prolific time of year. With the forecast set to improve at last over this coming week, we should see the start of that glorious four week period in which fish feed hard all day and some of the season's best sport is to be had. My records show that this usually occurs from the third week of May, although it may be slightly retarded this time around owing to the six week period of northerly airstreams we have just endured. Certainly the invertebrate activity is yet to extend fully into the evening period, with both visits this week seeing the hatch killed stone dead by 7pm. I'd expect to see the arrival of the first blue winged olives in the next 10 days, and with them the prospect of sport right through to dusk.

As the hatch faded, I did find some more activity courtesy of the grannom caddis. Right at the bottom of the river in a fast powerful riffle, I thought I heard a splashy rise as I walked past. Then another. I couldn't see the culprits, so fast and broken was the flow, but I slid in at the bottom end of the run and got nice and low to the surface to see if I could determine what was exciting the fish. The culprits were obvious - female grannom immediately swarmed around, using me as a convenient means by which to crawl back underwater and oviposit. The image below shows one on my wader leg, just breaking the surface.

Normally in such circumstances I fish a team of spiders, with such patterns as  woodcock and hare's lug working well fished just upstream of square and then eased around downstream to mimic the unfortunate flies which become entrained helplessly in the current. However, at that moment I couldn't be bothered with the necessary leader change, so I tied on a Wyatt's deerhair emerger (DHE) and began to search upstream, fanning casts in an attempt cover all the water ahead. This 'blind' dry fly fishing tends not to work too well on the Eden system I've found, being far outscored by nymphing tactics when there are no obvious risers to mark. But on this occasion it did the business admirably; the number of fish willing to come up to the fly in that popply run of water was amazing. Again they were not large fish, averaging no more than 12oz, but in fast water on a #3 rod they gave exciting sport and I couldn't have been happier with how the evening had panned out. Eamont trout are exceptionally bonny and I could never tire of catching solid fish of this calibre - check out that spade of a tail:

The following evening I was back, a little further upstream. I have mentioned in previous posts how in recent years our members have been concerned about the perceived decline in fly life and fishing quality on the Eamont. The AMI invertebrate sampling we have been undertaking over the last couple of seasons has indicated that the Eamont's fly life is at least as healthy as the parent river (with the exception of a short stretch immediately downstream of the Penrith sewerage works sluiceway); and the fact that recent outings have suggested a strong population of trout in the river, all adds up to a much more encouraging situation. I was keen to return to find further reinforcing evidence.

Bob had been out for most of the day and a phonecall around midday revealed that he had found the going to be slow. Later, when I caught up with him on the bank, it turned out that the river had come alive at around 3pm.....in much the same way it had done the day before. And Bob had capitalised by landing over a dozen fish to 2lb amidst a strong hatch of olives. The events of the last couple of days had left us in no doubt that the fish are most definitely there, and in impressive numbers. More regular visitors to the river than us might counter that this has always been the case and I wouldn't argue against for the reasons mentioned in a previous post. But what I can say with certainty is that over the last 8 years I have fished the river maybe three dozen times and have never seen anything like the activity we have seen these last couple of weeks; indeed I had never witnessed anything approaching a proper hatch. The Eamont is a delightful river to fish, with its bright, swiftly flowing water and waving beds of ranunculus. All that has been missing for me in the past was the quality of fishing that appearances merited. I am beginning to see now why Jon Beer once described it as the best wild trout fishing in England.


Bob shows off a decent Eamont trout.

River Eamont: success/failure

As I drove home yesterday, I mulled over the day's events and tried to decide to what degree the session had been a success. It had been interesting alright, and challenging certainly. I had caught fish, but left with an unshakeable sense of disappointment. It occurred to me that I could probably write two completely different accounts of the day. Success or failure? I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Success 

The Eamont hasn't been kind to me over the years, although that isn't so much a fault of the river as of the angler, I admit. It's a tricky river and one which requires time and effort to crack; but the rewards are most definitely there - particularly in the form of exceptionally large trout - as one or two fellow anglers I know can testify. My own experience however is less than impressive, mainly due to the fact that I have never given the Eamont the respect it demands. I have fished it in fits and starts, for short spells, and at inappropriate times; my meagre returns have reflected this fact, and so my poor perception of the river has become a self-fulfilling prophesy -  a desire to be elsewhere when the best fishing of the season is to be had.

I've always known this to be a flawed outlook and every year I vow to put things right, but never quite muster the resolve. Like so many things in life - like getting fit or kicking the drink - it sometimes take a glimpse of the other side to kick start an onerous task. I think I might have caught just a whiff of that greener grass today, a sneak preview of the potential the Eamont holds.

I fished the lower river - delightful water and surely one of the country's more picturesque streams. The Eamont is a joy to behold at this time of year, as it dances over clean gravels and stones and between waving beds of ranunculus. There is something of the chalkstream about it, but without the sanitised banks and stock fish. Clouds of black gnats quartered the surface and the day promised much. I started out with a duo rig and began to search the riffles and creases for opportunistic trout. Almost immediately a couple of 10" fish came to hand, one to the nymph and one to the deerhair emerger dry fly.

And so it continued as the morning wore on. Takes came reasonably regularly to either end of the leader and over the next couple of hours I returned a good number of fit little trout up to about 12" in length. Nothing ground breaking, but steady sport all the same; and I was learning all the time about potential holding spots, particularly for a few hundred yards where I had never wet a line before. I was beginning to feel a bit better about the Eamont and the prospect of a few summer evenings exploration just around the corner.

In due course I came to a tiny pool where currents from two different directions clashed to form a trouty looking crease-line along a scoop of slightly deeper water. Such spots are usually dead certs for a fish and I flipped the flies into the top of the 5yd long run, fully expecting action at any minute. What happened next was expected, but entirely unexpected: I watched as a huge trout ghosted up from the ranunculus bed below and engulfed the dry fly calmly as you like. My mouth probably dropped open as I lifted the rod to set the hook. I might have cursed. Nodding around aggressively in the confines of this tiny pool was my captive audience, a cock brown trout of somewhere between three and four pounds. I watched him through the crystal clear water as he quartered the current, gills flared in irritation. There was nowhere for the fish to go; steady pressure and patience would be all that was required to land what would likely turn out to be my fish of the season. So I stood my ground and waited.

Failure

I don't know whether the loss of that trout affected me for the rest of the day. The big old bugger certainly haunted me as I moved up through the pools. With all seemingly under control, the fish had made an all too predictable bolt downstream into the rapid tongue of current which issued from the little pot he called home. I was after him like a shot, stumbling over the cobbles in an attempt to regain the upper hand, and had seemingly done enough to restore parity when he rose to the surface, shook his kyped head and ejected the hook, just like that.

Disappointing for sure and I had spent a few long seconds staring up into the sky, mentally replaying the events just passed; but nevertheless here was an almost instant shot at redemption as I stood at the tail of the next pool up and watched a hatch of medium olives (baetis vernus) developing nicely. The wind was awful, coming at me from upstream in scudding gusts. I had got away with it whilst fishing the duo, as the weighted nymph on the point had aided turnover no end. But now, with four rising fish in front of me and a single dry fly being the order of the day, an altogether sterner challenge awaited.

I put up a short, steeply tapered leader and one of the stackwing duns I tied recently and prepared to give it best. Fortunately the wind seemed to be knocking the newly emerged duns about a bit and the fish seemed forgiving of a less than perfect presentation. Certainly, the rearmost trout took first pass and although it would have weighed little more than the pound, it gave a great scrap in the fast water of the pool tail....before the hook popped out - long distance release.
The next fish up duly obliged...and then fell off. So did the next, on its way to the net. Hmmmmm.

Two pools up and the hatch was still on. I could count another four fish on the feed along the edge of the main current. Although my hook appeared fine, I changed patterns just to be on the safe side, and set to work. Three hooked - and lost - fish later and I was beginning to get paranoid. Was I being watched? I hoped not!
During the early weeks of the season, I can confidently state that my conversion rate of fish risen to fish landed was high - up around 90%. I was pleased with this given that chances can be at a premium early in the year. However, this debacle coupled with my disastrous showing on the Ure recently (when I didn't even manage to hook the bloody things!), and a couple of nice fish dropped on the Ribble last Tuesday, mean that over the last three outings this conversion rate has dropped to something like 60%. Pathetic, frankly.

There will most likely be some underlying reason, but I'm goosed if I can figure out what it is. I remember a spell a few years ago when for some reason every good fish I latched on to, I ended up losing. They just wouldn't stay hooked. It took until mid July before I successfully landed a 2lb+ trout - and an accidental sea trout at that. Bad luck or operator error? Who knows.

Finally I managed to land one, willing it over the rim of the net with every last drop of my resolve. It was a  12" fish and with hindsight it probably wasn't appropriate to punch the air in victory. A few casts later and the best fish of the day succumbed and some sort of equilibrium was restored. I had landed just over a dozen trout, a return I suppose I should be happy with. But how can I call that success when I lost seven good fish including one which would have made the season?

One good reason to be cheerful though: the Eamont appeared to be in fine fettle and I suppose it's better to have had the chances and spurned them, than to have never had the chances at all. And I could talk about the medium olives and iron blues and large brook duns - all of which point towards a healthy river system. Another time perhaps.....I'm off to sharpen my hooks and practise some Tai Chi.

An Ill wind.

.

Apparently there are sound meteorological reasons why at this time of year we tend to get a long spell of cold airstreams out of the north - east quadrant of the compass. I googled it. Something to do with clashes between the gulf stream, Scandinavian high pressure blocks and the 'Azores Effect', whatever that means. It may be difficult to comprehend - even for a weather nerd like me - but the net result is that instead of feeling like early summer as it should, the conditions are more akin to February and the joyless fishing that that particular month brings.

Certainly as the four of us gazed forlornly across the wind-whipped expanse of Malham Tarn on opening day Tuesday, I was instantly transported back to the same day last year when identical conditions forced me off the water by lunchtime, frantically rowing beam-on to the wind with flat batteries and a rather concerned looking father in the stern. I learnt a lesson that day and wasn't prepared to entertain for a second time, the possibility of smashing the boat up under the overhanging peat cliffs of Tarn Moss.

Plan B then: Rob and Stu mooched off down Airedale to fish the sylvan waters of Coniston Hall Lake. Phil and I opted for the shelter of the steep-banked upper Ribble near Gisburn. At least that's what we hoped would be the case; but things didn't quite work out the way we had expected and instead of providing a leafy, verdant oasis of calm, the deeply cut Ribble hereabouts ended up acting like a natural wind tunnel and we spent a few 'entertaining' hours battling upstream into the teeth of a strong and unforgivingly chilly nor'easter.
That's not to say we didn't catch a few fish. The river was actually in fine nick with a few inches of stained water running off and bouncing invitingly down the limestone ledges. The olives trickled off all afternoon - mainly medium olives with a few large darks mixed in - and the fish seem willing to have a go in the usual spots. But it wasn't particularly pleasant and I soon tired of horsing my flies into the breeze whilst trying to keep my footing on dangerously slippery rock shelves.

Both of us went for a brace of nymphs tactic. Pitching such a team into the deeper pots and ledge water which charactarise this stretch of river can be exciting stuff, and although the fish were of a low average size - and were not exactly queueing up to be caught - we enjoyed steady enough sport until we called it a day around 4pm. At that point the bankside air temperature had dropped to a mightly 4C and the effects of the previous night's pub stay in Giggleswick had begun to take their toll on me. I was ready for off....and ready for a spell of calm weather in which to whisper my dry fly towards a feeding fish.
We had returned maybe 15 fish between us - mostly trout up to 12oz, but with a couple of nice grayling putting in an appearance. We couldn't help but feel that if the atmospheric conditions had been even remotely favourable, we might have had a field day. But they weren't, and we didn't. The Azores Effect can bugger off as far as I'm concerned.

Phil in action.....

......and amongst the fish.

 

Inflation/stackwing

How expensive is fishing tackle these days?! I just went out to my local dealer for a few odds and ends and spent fully 20 notes on next to nothing. Surely it's not that long since I last set foot in Ted Carter's, but I swear that only couple of years ago, a pack of Kamasan B100s was £2.20 - they are £3.10 now. And Stroft! Good God, the spool above cost £7.19 where last year it was under six quid. No wonder we are all struggling financially.
Luckily for me, the lack of tying I have done over the last 12 months means that I'm pretty well stocked on the materials front. All my fly lines are pretty much in order and I've got more rods that is strictly necessary. The only significant weakness in my armory is my completely knackered breathable waders. They were completely knackered last year (and the year before come to think of it), but I have soldiered on with soggy feet and industrial quantities of Aquasure nonetheless. It truly pains me to have to spend a large sum of money on an item which will add not a jot of enjoyment to my angling days; something designed merely to keep my legs dry; something that inevitably will fail in that duty all too soon. But the time has come and next month I will replace the old 'freestones' with a new pair.
They have given me five seasons of sterling service and I will be sad to see them go. I will probably bury them in the back garden next to my wife's pet rabbit.

The reason for my visit to the tackle shop was really only to pick up a couple of packs of cul-de-canard. I wanted to tie up some cdc olive imitations and stocks were perilously low. Back home I got to work assembling a handful of 'stackwing' duns -a style of fly I have tended to neglect in favour of the 'sloping forward wing' method employed on the likes of the 'JT olive' and my own upright imitation. The formation of this type of wing involves flattening and splitting of the thread, after which cdc fibres can be inserted and locked in by spinning the bobbin clockwise to re-twist the thread. The latter process is achieved with the aid of a small bulldog clip into which the fibres of a cdc plume can be inserted before being trimmed away from the stem (you can also get the Marc Petitjean magic tool to do the same job for a lot more money). It sounds complicated but isn't - and the result is a slim bodied, but very buoyant dun which will fool a few trout.

Stackwing Dun

Hook: Partridge SLD #16
Thread: Griffiths sheer 14/0 tan
Tails: coq de Lyon
Abdomen: Hends body quill #32 (with a single coat of 'hard as nails' to protect)
Wing: cul-de canard


As I write, the wind continues to blow hard off the Pennines and those balmy days we had in early spring are a distant memory. The unsettled weather pattern looks like continuing for a while yet and I am becoming impatient for the start of summer evening fishing proper. Hopefully by the time mid May arrives the weather will have settled down a bit. In the meantime I have opening day on Malham Tarn to look forward to......and a forecast of gusts to over 40mph from the north east. Oh joy. 

Sedge Sunday

Remember the story of the single fly box? Well after following a welcome tip-off from a visitor to this blog, I managed to secure another couple of those handy little Orvis fly boxes to add to that one I already own. It might not seem much of a thing to you fans of expensive Wheatley or C&F gear, but I've found it to be dead reliable over the years - robust and completely watertight - and I rued only buying the one before they were ostensibly discontinued a while back. Except Neil had noticed a few still being stocked by Orvis US and sold at a discount; needless to say I was on the case like a tramp on a bag of chips and a few days later this dyed in the wool One Fly Box man was spreading his meagre fly collection out into three boxes marked 'olives', 'small and black' and 'sedgy stuff'.

And then I discovered an imbalance. I guess I knew it existed, but like a bastard sibling, refused to acknowledge it openly. For a man who has attended a number of Stuart Crofts' excellent talks, I should have known better: my sedge imitating collection boiled down to a load of Moser's balloon caddis, a few cdc & elk, and a handful of my own 'Eden caddis emerger' and 'Matty's mess' patterns. There were a few other gaping holes too, which went a long way to illustrating just how reliant I have become upon a very small number of patterns. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I'm not entirely sure.

So to the vice this weekend, and a quick retrograde action to beef up my caddis artillary. I began with a fly I use on stillwaters occasionally, but which - unbelievably - has yet to find its way into my river collection: Bob Wyatt's legendary deer hair emerger (DHE). I had all but forgotten about this fly until a friend loaned me Bob's tying DVD and I was instantly reminded of the beautiful form and poetic simplicity of his best known work. The DHE is everything a fly should be - straightforward to tie, robust, and correct in profile and attitude. I have been using the snowshoe hare version as an olive imitation for years now and have complete and utter faith in it. Why I haven't been carrying the DHE around with me at the same time, I really can't say. I have corrected this oversight now.



Wyatt's DHE

Hook: Varivas 2200 #14
Thread: Griffiths sheer 14/0 tan
Rib: as above
Dubbing: hares ear
Wing: fine coastal deer hair


Later on I got a bit more creative and after some fannying about, landed upon a blend of Weilenmann's cdc & elk and the aforementioned Matty's mess, with a bit of jungle cock thrown in for good measure. The jury is still out as to whether the latter adds to a fly in a river context. It certainly does on stillwater patterns as we have known for some time. Last year I developed an olive nymph which utilised this feature and has since proved to be very useful....although whether this is down to the JC is a moot point. I don't know to be honest,  but I like the additional trigger and a natural caddis emerger is certainly not short of appendages that's for sure. This is definitely one for the 'work in progress' list - I like the look of it, but it needs to some time on the water to establish how it fishes and whether the trout like it more than other patterns I use. Either way, it was fun to put a couple of hours in at the vice and blow off a few 'bobbin hand' cobwebs......and remind myself how crap I am at stacking deer hair! 

No Name Sedge

Hook: Varivas IWI T-2000 #14,12
Thread: UTC70 light olive
Abdomen: Hends body quill #33
Thorax: natural cdc dubbed using split thread method
Cheeks: jungle cock splits
Wing: fine coastal deer hair
Head: more cdc

River Ure, Bainbridge: Alas Smith and Eastham

An enjoyable day with Dave Smith on the upper Ure near Bainbridge. We had planned a few weeks ago to visit a beat I have access to at Masham, but midweek showers  - and subsequent spate of the middle river - put paid to the idea and we were forced upstream into the headwaters in search of lower, cleaner conditions. The visiting angler is well catered for on the upper Ure and we had a choice of several miles of water controlled by either the Hawes and High Abbotside Association, or a little way downstream, the Bainbridge water which is available on an inexpensive day ticket from the Wensleydale A.A. We opted for the latter and after obtaining permits from the Rose and Crown Hotel, headed off downstream in search of Yorkshire trout.

As expected, the river was carrying a good tinge of lingy colour and was running about a foot above normal summer level. Considering how things had looked like panning out earlier in the week, we were grateful to be able to fish at all and although the level of turbidity in the water was perhaps a little high to be ideal, the lively, foam-flecked surface of the river looked inviting and held promise enough to instill confidence that some sport would be had.
It turned out to be absorbing fishing. A typical spring day, the weather shifted from overcast and chilly to occasional sunny warmth....but all this time a cold north-westerly blew down Wensleydale from the Pennine watershed and made life a little uncomfortable for the upstream angler. We had started with sub surface tactics: Dave searched the foam lanes with a 'duo' set-up, and I tackled the more boisterous water with a brace of nymphs. The going proved slow, a single fish to my red-tagged hare's ear the only interruption to our rhythm early on.

For most of the morning we watched a likely looking willow-lined glide of foamy water, feeling sure that should a few olives emerge then it would be along this slightly more sheltered stretch of water. And although we had to wait until gone 1pm, eventually our combined hunch proved sound as a steady trickle of large dark olives began to appear and the resident trout obliged, allowing us to work up through the pool together, taking turns at rising fish.
I have to confess that I had something of a nightmare at this point. Over the next hour, I cast to five feeding trout and rose them all, but failed to put a single one on the bank, either knocking them off or lifting into thin air. It could have been classed as unlucky but to honest I fished like a pillock and got exactly what I deserved: I persevered with a leader which was far too long and fine for the conditions, delivered ragged, poor quality casts and was probably lucky to rise the trout in the first place. Later on I finally managed to get my act together and successfully bring a nice fish to hand; but as if to administer one last kick to the testicles, fate decreed that it should be a grayling - a nice grayling, but very much out of season.

Dave on the other hand, was the very embodiment of efficiency, picking off his target fish with a quiet authority - which left me feeling relieved that at least one of us was performing competently. After what was shaping up to be a bit of a grueller, it was great to be fishing amongst rising trout; and if I was unable to capitalise, the next best thing was seeing Dymock's finest bring a succession of truly beautiful wild browns to hand. They were impressive fish - all yellow belly and broad shoulders. The best of the day measured 17 inches and is shown below. Well done Dave, that was good angling!

 

By about 3:30pm it was just about over for the day and a heavy downpour forced us into the pub before going our separate ways. It had been an all too brief but enjoyable day, and for me, just about the last of what I think of as proper 'spring' fishing. From now on the focus of my attention will turn to evening sessions on my local rivers and the gradual acceleration of sport into the salad days of the season. The next time Dave and I cross paths beside running water it will be on the Eden in early June and who knows what possibilities that session might hold in store.

To round off then, a few photos of the competent half of the Smith-Eastham partnership in action:

Out of kilter, but busy on Barnsfold.

Is this what it feels like to get old? I don't know what I was thinking when I left the house this morning, but the idea was to pack sufficient tackle to be able to fish either river or stillwater after work, a decision I would postpone until much later. The problem was, I forgot some important things and ended up with a right hotch-potch of gear, leaving me with significant shortfalls in both disciplines.

In the end I opted to fish Barnsfold again. It's too early really for evening sport on our rivers and I knew that the chance of some surface action would be high at my local stillwater. Still I dithered all afternoon, contemplating wind speed and direction, the water level and clarity of our beat on the nearby River Lune, the possibility that a cold northerly wind would put fish down at Barnsfold thus condemning me to a miserable few hours of pulling lures. As it turned out, the decision was made for me by my own absent-mindedness. I had spent an hour of the previous evening spooling on a new #4 DT line, before whipping on a loop connection at the tip. The reel was still sitting in the kitchen at home......and although I did have a #5 line to hand, I didn't fancy overburdening my 3 weight Streamflex by two line sizes.

So to the reservoir. I had the gear I needed with the exception of my fishing bag in which to decant the evening's required bits and bobs (I would need to lug around my huge boat bag instead); and waterproof leggings. Frequent heavy showers promised a soaking at some point - on with the waders then. And I'd forgotten my bloody camera too. And landing net.....Jeez!

Perhaps surprisingly, I managed to pull myself together to enjoy a splendid evening's fishing. Somehow though, remnants of my earlier senility seemed to pervade and towards the end of the evening I found myself fishing a #7 floating line on my 6 weight rod, and a #6 kelly green intermediate on my poker-like 7 weight. How I arrived at that point would take some explaining, but it's to do with aspects of my line collection....and sheer bone idleness. You don't want to know......

Anyhow, I enjoyed a fine three hour session. All evening a weird atmosphere pervaded with the wind alternating between cold north-easterly and absolute flat calm at regular intervals. The air hung heavy with the promise of rain and all the time, dark clouds trailing the slant of heavy showers marched across the distant Fylde plain below. Up on the edge of Beacon Fell, it stayed dry and when the wind dropped back the lake came alive with an immense hatch of midge. The surface was so peppered by the rings of emerging flies that it looked as if it were in fact raining......and of course the trout went into full-on dining mode.

I chopped and changed between methods depending on the indecisive wind. On one rod I set up a washing line rig with a pair of rootbeer crunchers above a small black booby. Over the course of the evening I would twiddle and pull this set-up back on either a fast glass, or kelly green intermediate depending on how high in the water the fish were. On the other rod, I went for a single suspender buzzer on long tapered leader and fine tippet - the same MO which had worked so well on my previous visit. Both caught fish in roughly equal measure: seven rainbows found the crunchers to their liking and a further eight were fooled by the emerger, particularly late on when the the light began to fade and the fish threw all caution to the wind as they mooched around slooping up midge from the surface film. It was super stuff and I was left in no doubt that I had made the right decision in delaying proceedings on running water for another week or two.

My strangely forgetful frame of mind had one last twist in store. I had purchased an evening ticket (one fish, any three hours after 5pm), and had chapped my first fish to give to Dad for his breakfast. There was no sign of it when I got home - I must have left it on the ground outside the car when I packed up. If anyone finds this today under the pines next to the lodge, they are more than welcome to it....but can I have my Wychwood bass bag back please?!


The Critical Inch

I have received a couple of queries recently asking about how to go about catching trout 'off the top' at Barnsfold. It's really not difficult - if I can do it, anybody can. But some anglers there do seem to struggle when the fish are perceived to be taking dries. It's all about the Critical Inch.

Often when we see rainbow trout porpoising through the surface, it's easy to assume they are taking flies right off the surface. With hatching midge, I've found this very rarely to be the case. The fish seem to become preoccupied with the insect hanging below the meniscus at the point of ecclosion. Thus a dry fly, sitting up on top of the surface, is ignored; and attempts to present small buzzer patterns inevitably result in the flies fishing too deep, even if they are only inches down. Hence the Critical Inch - the fly needs to be presented in and immediately below the surface film. Nothing new there I know  - modern river fishers spend 70% of their time fishing emerger patterns. In the stillwater midge fishing context, this usually translates as some sort of shuttlecock or suspender buzzer pattern. I prefer the latter - frankly I can't be arsed with cdc when the fly is going to get mauled by rainbow trout on a very regular basis. My pattern is based on one shown to me by the later Eric Sayers and regular visitors here will have probably have seen it before. The photo at the top of the page shows a few tied up in black, rootbeer and lime green.

I've received a few disparaging comments about these in the past. One time a guy sidled over and asked "what's the magic fly then?" and when I showed him, he followed up with "yeah, tipped with a maggot I bet!"
Several anglers have asked why I leave a tag of foam poking over the hook eye, believing it must spook the fish. No, it doesn't look much I admit, but you have my word that it is the single most deadly fly I have ever used at Barnsfold. And although I tend only to fish the place in spring, my old man uses them all year round
and enjoys equal success -  a hare's ear version serves admirably as an emerging sedge pupa. Fish them either singly, or with one or two small buzzers or diawl bachs above to create a kind of scaled down washing line rig. Either way, prepare for action!

The following photos illustrate why I believe them to be so effective, and why the ungainly looking foam post is not an issue:

The abdomen hangs immediately below the surface. From this angle, the foam tag is not visible due to refraction. What about from directly below?

Still little sign of the foam tag...and against the light background of the sky, I'll bet it's more inconspicuous still.The fly adopts that 'hanging in the meniscus' pose to an absolute tee and the thorax dubbing gives a nice impression of emerging legs and appendages.

Angler's eye view - the foam post guarantees buoyancy and acts as a neat 'sighter' so we can always be sure where our fly is, even at distance.

The suspender buzzer is an established pattern, but I've yet to see another angler use this variation on the theme. Old Eric used to tie them and sell them down the local tackle shop, so some local anglers must still carry a few surely? Certainly anyone who tackles Barnsfold without a few of these - or at least something very similar - in their box, is handicapping themselves unnecessarily. I wholeheartedly recommend them to you.

Light Relief

And so to Barnsfold Reservoir for a bit of fun with stocked rainbow trout. I always enjoy a handful of trips to this super fishery early on in the season when the fish are keyed onto the mass midge emergence. Superlative sport to buzzer patterns can usually be relied upon - particularly when the trout become preoccupied with sipping the emerging insects from right out of the surface film and a carefully presented suspender type pattern can result in impressive returns.

Dad and I turned up at 5pm last night to find only two other anglers on the water. Maybe the weather had put anglers off (a strong westerly and promise of heavy rain), or maybe they were tied up with Easter holiday stuff. Whichever way, by 6pm we had the entire 22 acres to ourselves. And in a sheltered corner we found the fish hard on the feed, as expected, to hatching midge.

I'm not the worlds biggest fan of fishing for stockies, but when the fish are switched onto natural foodstuff and behaving in a more naturalised manner, then there is no doubt that the fishing can be every bit as challenging as on wild waters. Sometimes more so. Last night was pretty straightforward though and I managed to return 11 trout and a solitary rudd(!) in just under three hours. The main problem was that of presentation of a floating fly in the flat calm conditions of that sheltered little corner. Just as had been the case with the wild brownies of the Eden two days previously, the need to sink an appropriately fine tippet was paramount and it quickly became apparent that this was going to be no occasion for 0.18mm fluorocarbon. I ended up using a tapered leader and single fly on a well de-greased tippet of 0.14mm copolymer - not all that different to a river dry fly set up in fact.

I still suffered a number of refusals for sure - edgy boils beneath the fly as the fish were spooked by the tippet at the last minute - but as the evening wore on and the light began to fade, the task became somewhat easier, the fish just that bit more forgiving of less than perfect presentation. It was entertaining sport and as ever, Frank's fish were a credit - hard fighting silvered rainbows averaging a pound and a half in weight. That probably won't be the last trip I make to my local fishery before the end of spring.......

Welcome to the Jingle!

Not wanting to sound like a broken record, but this lovely spring weather has been a real hindrance to those of us looking for early season dry fly sport. Fly life may have been reasonably abundant but olives in the air are no good to a trout fisher; they need to be on or in the surface of the water and so far I - and most other anglers I know - just haven't seen that. Of course the weather is to blame. Warm breezy weather facilitates the drying out of the newly emerged dun's wings, meaning that no sooner than they break through the meniscus, they are off and away - safe from piscine attention for the time being. The fish may not have had much opportunity to feed on the duns then, but they have certainly been hawking about after the ascending nymphs and most of us have enjoyed some fine sub-surface sport at appropriate times of the day. It's just not the same though, and - I say this as an avid fisher of the nymph - I have yearned for a proper spell of dry fly sport, with numerous large trout keenly on the feed giving this ring rusty angler the opportunity to get his eye back in with the floating fly.

Happily the cold, overcast conditions of this Good Friday went some way to redressing the balance and a fine day's sport was enjoyed with localised spurts of large dark olives and surprisingly early olive uprights 'sticking' for once and as a result, plenty of fish caught - some good ones too........and the revelation of a new fly pattern which proved to be incredibly effective and versatile.

A midweek lift of a couple of inches had improved the dire situation levels wise, but still hadn't made enough impact for me to be confident fishing the upper river. So I selected a mid-river beat well downstream of the Eamont confluence and resolved to concentrate my efforts there. An early start saw me inevitably nymphing to begin with and pleasingly a brace of patterns (copperhead hare's ear and baetis nymph), pitched upstream on a short line was all that was required to tempt half a dozen fish from the boulders and infant ranuculus beds. If I have bemoaned in the last couple of years, the apparent dearth of 'average sized' Eden fish, I had no cause for complaint yesterday - each of these fine little brownies were in the 10-14" bracket: a trend which would continue until much later on. They were beautiful fish to catch and gave great sport in the fast flowing water on my 10' #3 rod.

It didn't take long before an occasional olive began to appear. Anchored to the surface in the cold damp air, I was able to track their downstream progress for some way and in due course, a trout or two began to rise to them - usually 'oncers' or else very sporadic risers. I didn't feel it was quite time for the dry fly, so I met the situation halfway and nipped off my dropper, replacing it with a dry to give a duo setup. And thus begins a very interesting story........

There was a time a few years ago when I felt the need to carry a waistcoat full of fly boxes to the river with me. I felt exposed if I didn't have a comprehensive array of patterns all in different colours and hook sizes and as a result had individual boxes for olives, caddis, terrestrials, spinners, etc etc. I don't know what happened, but I eventually came to realise that I could count on a couple of hands the number of different fly patterns I actually used during a season. And then I read Bob Wyatt's fine book and realised that what I had subconsciously done, was distill the season's key hatches into a handful of patterns which presented the correct size, profile and trigger points, and discarded all the ancillary crap. What I ended up with, by a process of natural evolution, was a single dry fly box with some key patterns (and a few one-offs for occasional specific conditions). I'm a bit embarrassed to show it to be honest....but here it is:

Perhaps I've gone too far the other way, but these days I belong firmly to the 'presentation over pattern' camp, believing that so long as the approximate GISS (General Impression of Size and Shape) of the fly is thereabouts, then it will be not be refused by the fish, given correct presentation. Consequently, you'll see the above box contains a lot of flies which are a) quick and easy to tie and b) robust. Those are probably my two main criteria these days given that I just don't have time to be tying flies all the time - I knock another few of each pattern up when I've lost a few in the trees.

No, I ceased to get excited about new fly patterns a while ago; experience has taught me that my time is better spent trying to improve my amateurish presentation technique rather than sitting behind the vice trying to create a 'panacea' fly.

Something happened yesterday though that made me take a step back. A Scottish friend of mine had been waxing lyrical about a fly that has been doing the rounds north of the border for a few years now. It originated on the competition scene, proving devastatingly effective early season on rivers such as the Clyde and Tweed. When Davie fished the Eden a few weeks ago, it worked its magic just the same. My ears pricked up. I asked for details.
When I saw the fly, I admit to being disappointed - it looked a bloody mess, and the antithesis of everything my own fly collection represents. It was a messy stack of collar hackle -  a traditional dry fly without the finesse. Never a fan of collar hackled dry flies, I had serious doubts, despite the persuasive endorsement. I was assured that it was deadly as a high riding dun, but that by crushing the hackles it would also sit down in the surface film and imitate a crippled/drowned dun, and that it could be fished effectively as a wet fly too. That tipped it for me - I like a bit of versatility. I tied a couple up as best I could and tucked them into a corner of my fly box.

I've shown my version below. I used materials which I had to hand (not necessarily the correct ones), and tried my best to interpret the essence of the pattern. I think it came out looking somewhere near, although apologies to the lads who use this regularly if I've made an utter balls up:

LDO Jingler

Hook: Hayabusa #14
Thread: 14/0 sheer
Tails: coq de Lyon
Body: Hends body quill
Rib: yellow Pearsalls
Hackle 1: red game cock
Hackle 2: grey partridge

And that's it, the jingler. The thing is, as I found out yesterday, it is astonishingly effective. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. As soon as I began prospecting with the duo set up, trout came from nowhere to take this fly. Blind searching with the dry fly is not a tactic I have found to work that well on the Eden, but this was just incredible; trout after trout came out of nothing to nail it. On the water, its profile looked amazing: later when I fished it amongst natural duns, I had difficulty picking it out, so correct did it appear. It must have been about right from the fishes point of view too because when the trout began to rise more steadily and I was at last able to target individual fish, it was just not refused - not once. From high riding the riffles at the pool heads, to fishing low in the surface film on the pool tails, the jingler worked utter magic all day....and yes, when I let it sink and tried it fished wet, it did indeed nobble a couple of trout: once when a fish bulged at it in classic upstream wet style, and then again when I let it drift and swing downstream. An amazingly versatile pattern!
Why this should be the case, I've no idea. Really. But what I do know is that I have made a place for the jingler in my fly box and it will be the subject of plenty further investigation.

Back to the fishing. As mid afternoon approached, I assumed that the best of the day was behind me. Olives had emerged in localised spots from mid morning right through until 2pm, but never in numbers enough to call a proper hatch. With 15 trout and a solitary grayling to my name I was more than satisfied with the day's proceedings and about to head back to the car. As I passed a short stand of bankside willows, something made me stop and take a look at the 10yd long pot of deeper water which ran beneath them. I pushed the branches aside and dropped into the tail of the pool..and was greeted by an incredible sight. Like a gatecrasher opening the door onto an unexpected party, I looked upstream to see no fewer than five large trout hoovering up an intense, but very localised hatch of large dark olives as if they hadn't eaten in weeks; every couple of seconds a large back would break the surface as a big wild trout porpoised over another hapless dun.

My mouth was dry and my palms sweaty at the opportunity which had just presented itself. I couldn't get my fly out quick enough....yet somehow I couldn't get my fly out at all. Rooted to the spot, I watched the fish for a good five minutes, hastily formulating some sort of an order of attack in my mind. I drew a blank in this sense - the trout showed no inclination to hold any sort of station, preferring instead to quarter the tiny pool back and forth like things possessed.
In the end I went for a tactic of slowly edging my fly up the pool, trying to anticipate the route that they were taking. In truth the going proved straightforward - a case of letting the fish find the fly rather than the other way around. I managed to net four of the five trout (the last one became very jittery and I ended up putting it down with a cast which looked ok to me, but which proved the final straw). They were beautiful specimens which transformed a good day into a memorable one. The largest was a broad shouldered brute of 2lb 7oz and together, the four fish had a combined weight just shy of 8lb. Very much a case of being in the right place at the right time....at 3:30pm I would normally have been stripping the waders off. It just goes to show that we should never become too encumbered by preconception.

Signs from above

Our rivers have dropped dead low. This last rainless week in particular seems to have had a terrible effect and when I visited the Eden a couple of days ago the inexorable drop to around 2 inches below normal summer level had transformed the river from being merely low and clear, to a sad shadow of its normal self; in dire need of a drink.

I had a tough time of it. In an attempt to find some lively water I headed downstream to below the Eamont confluence. But a nasty sickness bug a day or two prior had left me weak, dehydrated, and feeling like my insides had been scooped out with a wooden spoon. The act of dragging my sorry carcass against even this comparatively meagre flow was tortuous and I struggled like a man twice my age over the cobbles and pink sandstone boulders of the river bed.

The wind, at least, was favourable and I was able to fish one handed, rolling my flies out methodically on a short, effectively 'fixed' line, whilst leaning on my wading staff gratefully (an implement I very rarely use but which was called into action on this occasion). I have seen Eden stalwart Terry Cousin fish skillfully in such a manner on several occasions, and with no little grace for a man now well into his seventies. Alas, I fear I presented a very poor imitation!

Still, I managed a few fish although none were large. The trout seemed to be unusually skittish - for this time of year at least - in the low, spring-clear water, and I put down as many as I hooked. A couple were off as soon as my fly line wafted into the air and I soon realised that I would have to lengthen my approach - and leader - to more like late summer proportions if I were to meet with any success at all. Eventually, from some distance away, and with near enough 17' of tapered copolymer separating the fly from fly line, I rose a big trout.....and then knocked him off on the strike. That was a good fish which moved a hell of  a lot of water when he boiled off angrily. Never mind - I hope there will be plenty more like him as the season progresses.

Generally though, rising fish were few and far between and I struggled up through a couple more pools with a brace of nymphs for a few more pan sized trout. Sweating, shivering and feeling close to total exhaustion, I had a last few minutes at a favourite spot. The farmer was ploughing through an adjacent field and the attendant flock of gulls wheeled after him on the breeze, peppering me with guano as they went. Shat on from a great height, then. It had been that sort of a day.

Reasons to be cheerful: part 2

A chance presented itself this weekend to nip down to our beat on the Ribble, although time would be at a premium, actual fishing time limited to no more than two hours. Still, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (thanks Mum), I did battle with the legions of slow moving vehicles on the A59 and rolled up at our mid-beat parking spot at bang on 11am. I would have to be back at the car no later than 1pm.....but at least I was there at the right time of day!

I have written here before about how the Ribble has begun to concern me over the last couple of seasons. Although a local lad, I don't have the benefit of years of experience on the river to inform my observations, having only started fishing it when I joined the club in 2008; but it seemed to me that the trout fishing fell away drastically in 2010 to the point where last year the only brownies I encountered were invariably stock fish from adjacent mid river beats. Even the grayling fishing seemed to decline.
There are some that might argue that I'm talking rubbish and fair enough, you could point to the reduced number of visits I have made (and at sometimes inappropriate times) whilst devoting much time to the Cumbrian Eden. You could also argue that I don't know the river that well and am certainly not an especially good angler.....and you would be right. But nevertheless, I felt at times that I was fishing over dead water and have suffered comparative lack of success with every method under the sun from dry fly to stripping streamers.

This brief session went some way to allaying my fears. The river, although dead low, looks fresh and lively. Small beds of ranunculus are beginning to form in some runs and the riverbed gravels and stones are scoured clean with none of the low water gunge we have come to expect of the agriculturally stressed Ribble. Even as I approached the water's edge I could see that large dark olives were streaming from its surface, tiny sparks of fire illuminated by the mist-hazed sun. I set to work in the ledgy pocket water and was into a good fish within a couple of casts. Then another, slightly bigger. They were wild fish and in the peak of health, fighting like tigers in the shallow, briskly flowing water.

A short way upstream, another brace of trout obliged; one leopard-spotted and strikingly beautiful, the other at over the pound, the best fish of the session. With one eye constantly on my watch, I rushed through the best looking bits, feeling certain that more thorough exploration would have brought further success. An out of season grayling brought matters to a close and I made the steep climb back to the car feeling as happy as I have done by the banks of the Ribble for a long long time. Although the olives had hatched in great numbers, I didn't see a single one on the water's surface and not a single fish rose. Again it seemed they had been content to harass the ascending nymphs and again, a small weighted hare's ear pattern on the end of a tapered leader had proved amply acceptable.

That might not seem like a ground breaking couple of hours I know, but sometimes the small things are most important and if my early season fishing has given me plenty to be hopeful about, then this was surely the icing on the cake.

Reasons to be cheerful: part 1

In keeping with the trend of the last couple of years March has turned out to be exceptionally dry around these parts, and more recently, very warm and sunny. Our rivers may be perilously low but the fish don't seem concerned and have taken advantage of the early spring to go on the feed most days - albeit in a more measured and languorous fashion than the usual concentrated bursts of frenzied feeding that we would expect at this time of year.

Of course this regime has largely been dictated by the pattern of invertebrate activity we have witnessed so far. Rather than a compressed hatch period between the hours of 11:30 and 13:30, we have seen large dark olives trickling off in smaller numbers from as early as 9:30, right through until late afternoon; and the warm sunny conditions have allowed them to make a very quick break for the sky leaving some anglers perplexed by the apparent lack of rising fish. They may not be betraying the fact at the surface, but I have found that the fish are on the fin and in feeding mode. Most of my offers have come to the sunk fly - of the two dozen or so that I have caught thus far, only five have come to dry fly with the rest falling to either upstream nymph or spiders; it seems they have been busy sub-surface, quartering the currents for the ascending nymphs. Any dry fly sport seems to have been restricted to odd individuals mopping up drowned duns in the busy water at the pool heads - a complete contrast to the usual scenario of fish sitting lower back on the more sedate sections of pools and mopping up duns at their leisure.

No matter, I've fished the Eden three times so far and enjoyed some sport in glorious - if a bit windy - spring conditions. Apart from the 2lb plus fish from Monday's outing, nothing has been bigger than about a pound and a half, but fish have come quite readily which is a relief following a winter in which the only eventful thing to happen to my  fishing gear is that my #5 line seems to have developed a disturbing number of cracks. This fit looking trout was about the best of the rest:

We have reason to be optimistic about the coming season. Hatches so far may not have been up to much, but they certainly included a good number of rithrogena germanica, the true march brown. These big flies seem to have emerged in short spurts of good numbers - a few dozen popping up in isolated 10 minute spells. As I have written here before, although once considered common on the Eden system, in recent years they have become extremely scarce and any similar looking fly has invariably turned out on closer inspection to be a large brook dun (ecdyonurus torrentis). The easiest identification between the two is that the former has small dark blotches on its femurs (upper leg section) - a characteristic of rithrogena species, the olive upright (r. semicolorata) has them too. From as high up as Kirkby Stephen to down below Watersmeet, there have been encouraging numbers reported which is a very good thing indeed.

At Edenhall on Friday, Bob and I witnessed good numbers. Bob in particular sat back and watched a short lived but intense flurry of the brown duns which failed to interest the fish, although a rip snorter of a downstream wind was whisking them off the surface in a jiffy. A short way downstream, necessity dictated that I turn my back on the wind and fish a team of spiders amongst the mix of march browns and large dark olives. Three brownies fell to this tactic and it was interesting to note that all took the MB spider on the middle dropper in preference to either the waterhen bloa on top or the small olive copperhead anchoring the point.

Overall though the pickings were fairly slim. We would rather have targeted individual rising trout but despite time spent searching, they just didn't materialise.The earlier part of the day however, had already given us ample reason to be cheerful about the coming months.

We carried out the first of the season's invertebrate monitoring on our Eden and Eamont kick sample sites and found the numbers present to be extremely healthy. Across all five sites there were very good numbers of baetid and heptagenid nymphs in particular. The Eamont samples showed up plenty of large stoneflies and caseless caddis (rhyacophila, hydropsyche) were abundant across the board. The littoral stones of both rivers are peppered with the tiny particle igloos of the agapetus caddis; and of course the march brown clinger nymphs were instantly recognisable by the darkened ripeness of their wing cases (on one occasion a pair of duns hatched right there in the sample tray as we watched). The abundance of invertebrates was very encouraging and as healthy as I have seen since I started on the Angler's Monitoring Initiative (AMI) two years ago. The photo below should give you some indication - a close up of some olive nymphs clustered into a corner of the sample tray - an area approximately 3 inches square:

One interesting find in the final sample we took (Eden below Appleby), was a brook lamprey. This primitive looking creature superficially resembles a tiny eel, but has a line of holes for gills and a weird circular sucker job for mouthparts. I have never seen one before and I'm in no hurry to again - it gave me the bloody creeps!

At the weekend I snatched little under two hours on my local River Ribble and found still further reason to be cheerful. Details on that little excursion will follow in part 2..........

Operations resumed

After a very benign winter we north west fly fishers have been anticipating a running start to the season. Certainly reports filtering down from the upper Eden system this last week seem to indicate that the trout are already more than willing to feed given favourable conditions. I have heard numerous reports of large numbers of March Browns hatching from the mid river right up to Kirkby Stephen, which is both unusual and extremely welcome (although the consensus seems to be that the fish weren't all that interested in them). And of course the LDOs appear to have been doing their thing as normal, allowing most anglers the opportunity to catch their first trout of 2012 on the dry fly. I hoped to count myself among that number by the end of today's session but in all honesty I made a low key start to the season. The going wasn't easy, but the challenge proved absorbing and I came away from the river having caught a few fish which at this time of year is about as much as I could hope for.

The first hour of the session was spent pitching a brace of nymphs upstream into likely looking spot. I started at 10am so was looking forward to an hour or two of just getting back into the rhythm of fishing whilst keeping a look out for any signs of emerging olives and rising fish. Happily, this tactic brought almost instant results and by the time I had covered 30yds or so of water, I had returned half a dozen fish - five trout and a solitary grayling. They were all in the 10-14" bracket, bar one 16 incher which was so thin and battered it looked like it had spawned yesterday. It was pleasing to note that they all came from relatively shallow streamy water, and were prepared to move up in the water column to take the flies soon after they had landed. It seems the fish have already become accustomed to adopting their spring feeding lines - and given the recent mild weather, probably have for some time now. It felt unusual to be getting takes in water which I wouldn't expect to be occupied for a few weeks yet, rather than the more customary flat, even water and deeper pool tails.

Given all the recent talk about a March Brown resurgence, I had gone with a #14 clinger nymph on the dropper. However, it was the point fly - a sizeable copper head hare's ear - which did the business on this occasion, accounting for every one of the fish I caught. This little chap was one of them:

That's all very well, but nymphing is no way to be spending your first session of the new season and I was very keen to get the tapered leader on and find myself a riser. This proved trickier than I expected. Although a few dark olives began to appear from 11:30am onwards, the warm sun and brisk breeze conspired to get them off the water in a flash. I usually prefer cool, overcast conditions which can delay the drying of the newly emerged duns' wings, leaving them nailed hard to the water's surface. In such circumstances it doesn't take many of the little blighters to bring the trout up to feed off the top. Not today though: for every dun I witnessed riding the currents, I saw a dozen careering off into the neighbouring fields on the back of an ever freshening breeze; and the trout, unimpressed, stayed down. What then, of the March browns? Well I was delighted to count maybe 10 of the big duns which emerged in a flurry at the head of one pool bang on midday. As far as I could tell, all escaped without piscine harassement.

I finally found what I was looking for a while later. Staking out a likely spot, I heard the rises before seeing them, watery kisses at the river's surface. I had been scanning a section of water back from the pool head for nebbing fish, but when I followed my ears and homed in on the source of the fishy sounding disturbance, I was surprised to find that the culprits were quartering the broken water right at the neck end of the pool. In such disturbed water, the rise forms were difficult to spot to say the least and this wasn't helped by the fact that each fish would rise a couple of times in quick succession before taking a break for a minute or two. Eventually after a period of about 20 minutes of watching and waiting, I had ascertained that there were four fish on station, two of which appeared to be of a good size. After deciding on which order to address them, I set to work.

It was difficult to resist the temptation to keep switching targets when things inevitably dropped quiet on whichever fish I was concentrating upon, but perseverance usually pays dividends in such circumstances and, that proved to be the case once more. I dropped the first fish when it jumped clear soon after being hooked - a nice looking brownie of maybe a pound and a half. The second fish turned out to be a 12" grayling (I should have realised when I had to give it a longer than usual 'lead' to elicit the take). The third looked to be a biggie from its porpoising rise forms, but turned out to be a modest specimen of little over the pound. The last fish - unsurprisingly from the lie it had adopted - turned out to be the best of the day. Occupying a crease-line tight between the current bulging over a submerged boulder and an adjacent back eddy, this fish was rising at a rate of twice every 3 minutes or so. It took me a good half hour to get things right, but I hit the jackpot eventually and spent the next five minutes being led a right merry dance by a spanking trout which tipped the scales at 2lb 5oz.

And that was just about that. Soon afterwards the wind picked up prohibitively and I beat a retreat to the car. I was quite pleased with my efforts considering it was my first outing for some time. I would have settled for avoiding the blank when I set out this morning, but although the fishing definitely wasn't easy, seven trout and a couple of accidental grayling were I felt, a pretty decent reward for fishing hard and - unusually for me - maintaining concentration.

One other thing bears recounting here, because it had me stumped for a while: whilst watching the above fish in their feeding routine, I found I couldn't pinpoint what they were taking at all. They were certainly feeding right off the surface, but not on duns and I was pretty certain they weren't taking midge or tiny terrestrials either. Although it probably wouldn't have mattered too much in effecting their capture, I sifted about just sub surface with the insect net below them for a few minutes and found that a few half drowned, crippled LDO duns were present in the surface film. These must have either been swamped by the roily currents in the pool head, or knocked over by the ever strengthening breeze.....or maybe a combination of both. Whichever way, I surmised that these must be what the fish were feeding on, maybe explaining the sporadic nature of the rises, and perhaps understandable given that owing to the atmospheric conditions, the more able bodied duns were able to escape the surface film in a matter of seconds. I can't say for certain if this was the case, but that's the best explanation I can offer. A correspondingly low riding emerger pattern certainly worked well enough.
Anyone else witnessed this sort of feeding behaviour?

Dark olive spiders

I tied a few more large dark olive imitations this afternoon, in readiness for my forthcoming sessions on the river. I concentrated on cdc duns mainly, although when it started raining heavily outside I was reminded that when the season opens, the chances of the river being low with surface feeding trout everywhere are probably quite slim. My thoughts turned to spiders - waterhen bloas, yellow snipes, and this fly of my own creation which I just call the dark olive spider. I tied up half a dozen and feel much better for it....not long now!


Dark Olive Spider

Hook: Mustad R50 #14 
Thread: Pearsalls silk, yellow treated with Bill Bailey's cobblers wax
Hackle 1: leggy cdc tied in at the tip
Hackle 2: two turns of olive grizzle hen

(photos can be enlarged by clicking on the image)