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One on the upstream nymph!


Anderoo

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A lovely fish, well done.

Eating wild caught fish is good for my health, reduces food miles and keeps me fit trying to catch them........it's my choice to do it, not yours to stop me!

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  • 3 weeks later...

They've started rising!

 

I grabbed a couple of hours early evening on Saturday, and had a very enjoyable little session. The trout are still fairly hidden, but the weed is beginning to sprout and a few sedges were hatching, and a few fish were rising. Judging by the tiny splashes, they were mostly small fish, but they're wild and beautiful and I don't mind how big they are.

 

The river is still extremely low and clear, and the fish were in the shade and cover of hawthorns and reedbeds. I managed to fool one tiny brownie after countless refusals, so I was off the mark for the season :) Even the tiddlers zoom and jump about like mad things! Further downstream a better trout was splashing at sedges in a very tricky spot, only reachable from upstream, so I had to do a wiggly downstream cast to get to him. It took a while, but eventually I saw him streak across the stream to nail the sedge, before jumping about 6 times in 2 seconds and then trying to get stuck in the sedges along the bank. Great stuff! I brought him in and slipped the hook out - just under a pound I reckon, a decent size for there, and more than a match for my #2 outfit :)

 

I walked back upstream very happy, but didn't see another rise until I was almost at the car. Right in the edge a decent trout was doing a kind of head and shoulders rise - taking emerging nymphs, I think, but occasionally supplementing them with the odd unlucky adult sedge. I managed to get close enough without spooking him (although he did move upstream a little bit, so he knew I was there - maybe he thought I was a sheep) and after a few casts he rose and onfidently sipped in the sedge - and then all hell broke loose as he zipped downstream so fast I burnt my fingers on the fly line! The little rod was doubled over, he didn't jump at all but stayed low and occasionally burst away with amazing speed. It was so exciting, and reminded me why I love fly fishing so much. I eventually drew him into the net and slipped out the fly. Unlike coarse fish I never suffer trout the indignity of weighing (I wonder why?) but he was a good pound and a half of powerful, beautiful, wild trout. What a lovely evening :)

 

(I also had a dig around in the gravel and weedbeds, and found scores of immature mayfly nymphs, so in a couple of weeks things will really get interesting. Less pleasing was a huge signal crayfish and two baby crayfish - until now, this tributary has been free of them, but I suppose it was inevitable really. It'll make the chub fishing both more annoying and potentially more interesting - maybe they'll start growing big there now...)

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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Sounds very promising! :D

 

Steve, let me know if you're free at the weekend (Sunday, ideally) and we can have another go. There might even be the odd Mayfly!

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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They've started rising!

 

I grabbed a couple of hours early evening on Saturday, and had a very enjoyable little session. The trout are still fairly hidden, but the weed is beginning to sprout and a few sedges were hatching, and a few fish were rising. Judging by the tiny splashes, they were mostly small fish, but they're wild and beautiful and I don't mind how big they are.

 

The river is still extremely low and clear, and the fish were in the shade and cover of hawthorns and reedbeds. I managed to fool one tiny brownie after countless refusals, so I was off the mark for the season :) Even the tiddlers zoom and jump about like mad things! Further downstream a better trout was splashing at sedges in a very tricky spot, only reachable from upstream, so I had to do a wiggly downstream cast to get to him. It took a while, but eventually I saw him streak across the stream to nail the sedge, before jumping about 6 times in 2 seconds and then trying to get stuck in the sedges along the bank. Great stuff! I brought him in and slipped the hook out - just under a pound I reckon, a decent size for there, and more than a match for my #2 outfit :)

 

I walked back upstream very happy, but didn't see another rise until I was almost at the car. Right in the edge a decent trout was doing a kind of head and shoulders rise - taking emerging nymphs, I think, but occasionally supplementing them with the odd unlucky adult sedge. I managed to get close enough without spooking him (although he did move upstream a little bit, so he knew I was there - maybe he thought I was a sheep) and after a few casts he rose and onfidently sipped in the sedge - and then all hell broke loose as he zipped downstream so fast I burnt my fingers on the fly line! The little rod was doubled over, he didn't jump at all but stayed low and occasionally burst away with amazing speed. It was so exciting, and reminded me why I love fly fishing so much. I eventually drew him into the net and slipped out the fly. Unlike coarse fish I never suffer trout the indignity of weighing (I wonder why?) but he was a good pound and a half of powerful, beautiful, wild trout. What a lovely evening :)

 

(I also had a dig around in the gravel and weedbeds, and found scores of immature mayfly nymphs, so in a couple of weeks things will really get interesting. Less pleasing was a huge signal crayfish and two baby crayfish - until now, this tributary has been free of them, but I suppose it was inevitable really. It'll make the chub fishing both more annoying and potentially more interesting - maybe they'll start growing big there now...)

 

This sounds like an absolutely idyllic way to fish. Small stream, rising fish.

 

I've never fly fished. But I will.

 

A lovely report Anderoo.

 

A good read on fly fishing is John Aston's 'A Dream of jewelled Fishes'. Charts his fishing life from float fishing for roach and ledgering for chub and barbel though various types of fly fishing. It made me understand its allure.

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days without taking a fish. (Hemingway - The old man and the sea)

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