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Mayfly time!


Anderoo

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I managed to sneak a couple of hours at a local Thames tributary this afternoon. When I last saw it, I was chub fishing and it was full of angry, brown water. What a difference! It is once again sparkling clear and thick with lush vegetation and flowering hawthorns. Even better - the mayflies were hatching :)

 

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There was a slight problem, however - about this time last year I managed to accidentally tip away almost all my dry flies, and then I forgot all about it. So, I get to the stream to see rising trout and spent mayflies to find - no mayfly immitations! Aaaargh!

 

I managed to fool a little brownie into thinking a white wulf was a small mayfly, but he was far too quick for me, and spat it out in disgust before I could make contact. Another one did the same to a dry sedge. All they wanted was mayflies, and I was severely handicapped :rolleyes: My meagre offerings were consistently ignored.

 

However, I did level the score slightly. I managed to inch very close to a rising trout and cunningly dropped a daddy right on its nose, and it sipped it in before it could suss my trick. A very lively fight ensued on my little 6' 6" #2 rod, and I remembered why I love fly fishing so much :)

 

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Several more trout ignored my non-mayflies, until I found a good fish feeding enthusiastically, head-and-tailing and just breaking the surface, looking like he was snapping at emerging nymphs. I got into a good casting position and broke out the big guns - 8ft #4! No messing about now! On went an unweighted mayfly nymph and 6" above it a little blob of floating putty. Not really cricket old boy, but drifting the nymph just under the surface had to nab this trout, surely?

 

A few casts later, and it did :) A twist of bronze under the surface and disappearing putty had me lifting into a lovely heavy, dark, rich trout - they don't grow massive in this little river, but this one was at the upper end, and put up a very hard fight, speeding up and down stream and leaping all over the place. I don't think I've ever caught such a beautiful trout in my life, really dark and pretty with huge spots. I didn't weigh him as I was keen to slip him back and make sure he was OK, but he was probably about 2lb.

 

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That was enough for me. One on the dry and another really gorgeous one on the upstream nymph. What a lovely afternoon :)

 

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

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Nice fish and nice pictures but, if my eyes don't deceive me that first fish is a salmon!

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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Nice fish and nice pictures but, if my eyes don't deceive me that first fish is a salmon!

 

It does look salmony doesn't it! I think my camera is lying again. It was a nice brownie of about a pound. Most of them there look like that, the dark brown and big spots of the second one is quite unusual.

 

Unless I've been catching loads of salmon these last few years and didn't know about it :o

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

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For a salmon, lack of spots on the gill cover (usually, fewer than 4 indicates time for a closer look!), small mouth, delicate head (compared with the other fish), a good 'wrist' to the tail and quite pointed tail 'flukes'. The spots are crosses as opposed to spots, no colour to the adipose fin.

 

Against a salmon, perhaps too many spots below the lateral line.

 

Could just be the light on some aspects but I'd certainly give it a very close look if I caught one like that over on this side of the country!

 

Is the river stocked?

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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Its the forked tail that does it Anderoo perhaps a bit of Sea Trout. I am in Devon and was fishing a lake near Totnes loads of Mayfly hatching off but nothing rising to them and I could not get a touch on the nymph either. I got everything on a size 16 olive nymph It was only then I noticed a load of pond olives hatching off as well.

Tony

 

After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.

 

 

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It does look salmony doesn't it!

 

Very wristy tail, too.

 

Just to throw a spanner in, trout-salmon hybrids are not unknown.......... :rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

 

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"Nothing matters very much, few things matter at all" - Plato

...only things like fresh bait and cold beer...

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Well done Andrew! I decided to go tench fishing yesterday, and then found that I had missed the tackle shop by ten minutes and couldn't get any bait. So I fished a local small stillwater for trout. They were rising to something, but were very cagey, and my evening amounted to two missed rises to hoppers and a little perch. The irony of the perch is that I caught it on a fry imitation I tied specifically for perching, but which I thought would do nicely for the large trout I had seen attacking the fry!

 

That suspiciously silvery salmonid looks a bit like a trout I had from Timsbury in 2008:

 

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Apart from a chuck in a stocked pond, I've never felt the urge to have a go at fly-fishing. That, however, looks like proper fishing! :thumbs:

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Great report Anderoo, looks like fantastic fishing! N

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope. ~John Buchan

 

Fundamentally fishing is a philosophy. A philosophy of earth, and growth, and quiet places. In it there is a rule of life, a recognition of permanences. It makes you notice the little things of nature, wherever you may be. ~Bernard Venables

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