My Weekend

April was a complete washout,  I suppose in the great scheme of things the rain that we all had in spades has to be viewed as a good thing given that were in the middle of a drought....but I hope this weather changes soon I have always considered the month of May as a sort of new dawn,  It marks the transition from the cold, dark and wet months and welcomes in warm evenings and fish rising to hatches of upwing flies.  At the moment the water still carries a real winter chill with it and the fly life is sadly lacking.  The cold winds are a real bind and evening fishing really isnt a prospect at the moment.

This weekend I have managed to get on the rivers twice to fish, Once on the Dove and once on my local beck both times the one common factor was a dearth of rising fish .  We need warmth and settled river levels to get things moving .  I did notice unusually  large numbers of cased caddis in the back eddies I think the big spates have washed them out of the normal runs and left them in great banks in the back waters I spent a few minutes turning stones to see what nymphs were about  I was surprised to see nearly every baetis nymph I found showed the dark wing buds of nymphs ready to take to the wing.  I could almost hear them saying if you think I am flying about in this cold you can naff of I am stopping here.  The only thing on the wing was a few hawthorn flies but the fish werent showing any interest in them.

The rivers look great at the moment decent levels and water clearing nicely but I sense everything is still in shock only a week ago this little pool had nearly a metre of extra water in it and was the colour of chocolate.

Both trips this weekend did result in fish coming to hand but it was hard work and it had the feel of a river in early March , cold water, fining down levels and the lack of insect life seemed strange for May.  Even the tactics were early season I resorted to a klinkhammer to bring up a few fish to the surface , I could have resorted to a nymph and probably caught more but its May for goodness sake its dry fly time and I was going to fish it...

I also did a kick sampling session at the weekend the first I have been able to do for weeks, strange results and as I suspected following my fishing trip the cased caddis were virtually non existent and other numbers were way down I guess a month of settled water levels will help things to return to normal.  One of my sampling sites looked like a bulldozer had been through it with great banks of gravel moved around  its amazing there was anything at all to be found.

Now according to the dates next week there should be Mayfly hatching,  It should be warm evenings with duns adorning the bankside plants and columns of spinners dancing in the soft evening light and fish lazily slurping the fat mayflies from the warm water.  At least thats what the books say I have a feeling it may not be quite like that....

Andy