Waving at Trains

Thursday was the first day of some holiday so 6ft Brook rod in hand went of to visit one of my favourite becks .  This is a small beck quite high up towards its catchment.  It is right on the edge of the North Yorks moors . The NY moors railway runs virtually along the bank at times .

Stonefly

There cant be many places where you fish where you get trainloads of people waving at you as the chug past . At times the river bank is only a few yards from the track and the noise and steam can be quite something. This is a delightful beck with good fly hatches , today there was many stonefly around even before I had set of there were good numbers sat on my car..This is just one of about a dozen that started sunning themselves on the car roof..So at least I knew what fly to start of with.

Pickering Beck

Down at the beck the recent rains had freshened the flow but it was still well down on usual summer levels . Gravel banks and tree roots normally covered were high and dry.   The trees however were as lush as ever waiting to catch any waywards casting . it took seveal minutes to get into this position which allowed me a cast at fish that was rising under the bush to the right.  You get maybe a couple of chances before the fish spook and with all the trees waiting for wayward casts or back casts its nice when you get it right and the fish do there part to, As it turned out they didnt want a stonefly imitation. 

Fly Caught Trout

They are the prettiest of wild browns perfect in every way and none have ever seen the inside of a hatchery .  This one took a small erics beetle a cracking little fly that still seems to work especially well on these tight overgrown streams . The afternoon went pretty much to plan walking along the bank and dropping down into likely reaches as silently as a overweight 50 yr old can do,  Wading upstream between pools just sends spooked fish charging upstream spooking every fish in the place.

The colours on these fish are truly splendid the reds in the spots are of a depth that only the proper wild trout show

Stunning wild brown trout

The afternoon came to end after about three hours of fishing lots of perfect little browns and wonderful scenery and even did a bit of waving at trains...