Afternoon on the Dove

The river Dove

Today (30th July) Had a short afternoon session on the Dove ( the proper Yorkshire one not the Derbyshire pretender). Its a lovely little river with a good population of Grayling and brownies the trout are supplemented by stocking by various syndicates that control different sections of the river also sadly by occasional escapes of rainbows from the trout farms that use the water catchment.

Today it was a breezy overcast day that was cooler than of late. The river is running very low as there has been very little rain for months.. But the view from the bridge offers the usual promise...At the top of the pic the overhanging trees shield a long deep glide that usually is the haunt of taking fish. In summer the brownies and in winter grayling take up residence under the trees


Today there was a pod of rising fish at the head of the glide . Was hard to see what they were taking although they were pretty tightly grouped under a the trees and after studying the water surface decided that the greenflies that dotted the surface were the most likely candidate . Things worked out well and a fish took on the third cast , the first cast was on target and the second cast caught the himaylan balsam on the back cast,However the little size 18 greenfly worked its magic and a brownie came to the net .


The greenfly are around in the millions at the moment in another month the ladybirds will be massing to eat them
Generally its a one fish per pool river , So after that fish its move upstream , The river is showing signs of high summer now the balsam is taking over and the grass is dying back.

River Dove brown trout

This fish is a stocked fish . All be a very nice one as in the net it proved to have very full fins and was scale perfect

After holding it in the current to recover it s swam away strongly

The ethics of stocking rivers is argued about but it is hard to see how the rivers can support the angling pressure these days with some sympathetic stocking . The river banks are less busy now the sandmartins have left there little colony and this years young have fledged and left , Only the kingfishers and the resident pair of Barn owls were busy today .


I fished on for a couple of hours taking the odd fish , but seemed to spend a lot of time watching and pondering, the early season urgency has gone now, very many fish have come to hand and the pleasure now is picking of individual fish and enjoying whats left of the long summer days .

The Yorkshire Dove

There was one fish rising in a small pool between overhanging trees see pic left . I spent far to long at. I had two or three casts at it then rested it and smoked and then tried again eventually he was deceived by a sedge that I pretty much dropped on his nose I think I shocked him into taking it...There were some sedges hatching , but there was also olives and various others including yet another late mayfly



The afternoon ended then a rare but welcome heavy shower took the sparkle out of the day. But I will be back many times this year . The river is a cracking river for Grayling and in another month or two the ladies will really start to play...