Blowing the Cobwebs away

I think I am getting old,  today after a fishing trip the process of getting out of the neoprenes resulted in me breaking out in what can best be described as a muck sweat, if I was so foolish to engage in a post christmas weight loss routine then my exercise routine is sorted.  Whoever created neoprenes clearly intended them to be a fiendish torture tool for the overweight and underfit.

The day started well the wind had dropped the weather whilst been cold had been settled long enough for the rivers to settle and fine down.  Fishing trips at the moment are at the mercy of the shorter days and wayward river levels so the opportunity was siezed, I fished czech nymphs, a method that I can use but one that doesnt give me the pleasure of other methods , three hours of concentration and repeated casting resulted in one sprat sized grayling and a potential case of repetitive strain injury.   For the last half hour the sight of a rising fish inspired me to revert to a klinkhammer. There is something uplifting to the spirit to see that surface fly drifting with the current.  As I have posted before I am a slave to the method and know  its a habit i need to to kick but a depressing december afternoon wasnt the time to go cold turkey.

The rivers are curious this year.  The cold water has dropped clear and the water reveals that the summer weed beds are still intact.  We have had no really cold temperatures and no large spates to rip out the summer weed beds,  it will be interesting to see what effect this will have on the river next year if the weather pattern remains.  Even the sheep are still out on the bankside pastures , which are still displaying an unusual degree of fresh growth.

Anyway tomorrow brings a new year,  I wish you all tight lines for it.  My fly tying starts in earnest now to fill those boxes ready for the new year . First will be my new found delight . North Country spiders. Watch this space.

In the ring of the rise

This time of year is when I tend to do a bit more reading.  Vincent Marinaro   "In the ring of the rise" is my current interest  its a title I have meant to read for a considerable period.  I apologise in advance to those of you that have already absorbed the book and are aware of its contents.

What fish actually see is of supreme importance to the fly angler,  the book explores brilliantly what the fish see and the effect it has on their feeding behaviour and how the evidence of such behaviour can be seen in the resultant rise form the fish leaves.  It also explores how fish see and react to the fly in, on or below the surface film.

When you consider how important the understanding of what fish see is its surprising that so little is written in the angling books, magazines and these days online.  I guess the easier approach is to concentrate on fly dressings , patterns and presentation.   I am not suggesting that people have not discussed the issue. Over the years many a diagram has been drawn .  Skues and Halford both discussed rise forms and spoke on the subject in loose terms.  Mottram in Fly Fishing some new arts and mysteries explores the problem draws diagrams and endeavours to reach some conclusions.  But I cant recall the last time I read a magazine article discussing the ideas the book contains.  

During my reading of In the ring of the rise,  one light switched on my brain which to me which partially explains the startling effectiveness of the klinkhammer to bring up Grayling from depth.  Again many of you may have already made this link and although I guess it should be obvious its still worth stating .  Fish are limited to a very small advance vision window as the surface film acts as a mirror from below until the fly is quite near, the emerger style of fly surely will be visible for a much longer period as it approaches a fish.  To those of us that have fished a klink style fly it is astonishing the way a grayling can intercept a fly.  

Also I listened to a talk recently by a fly fishing guide who stated that he liked to cut a V in the underside of a dry fly hackle , he beleives that the balanced footprint of the fly in the surface film gives the trout better advance warning of a fly approaching its feeding window.  The indentations of the trimmed hackle acting as a triggor point,  Same principle ? yes and something I will be trying in the forthcoming season.  If you havent read the book then get hold of a copy It may just open your eyes a little, it has mine.

A Fly tyers christmas

Shooting season is in full swing around here , when passing the local butcher and game dealer the hooks above the window displayed a fly tyers delight.  Pheasants, French Partridge and Red Grouse.  A pair of each for the pricely sum of £12 .  Now one pair of the Pheasants looked very nice, long tails and lovely church window hackles ,  thoughts of PTN and bracken clock.  The Red Grouse lots of flies here those lovely mottled feathers look very spiderish. Those Grouse series of sea trout flies.  The French Partridge not as good as the english but I am sure they will have their uses those nice barred feathers look good so do the little dark neck hackles...So money changed hands.....

Next the birds were skinned and left to dry a while.  Then the skins will be frozen for a few days before been trimmed and cleaned up then treated witha little borax, 

Of course you cant waste what comes inside the beautiful feather wrapping so the pheasant legs will be added to a yuletide casserole and the breast meat from all the birds will go into a christmas game pie.  Best £12 I have spent all year...

A hard but good day on a chalkstream after grayling.

Wednesday was a day that I have anticipated for some considerable period.  The venue for the grayling expedition was Mulberry Whin on the Yorkshire wolds. It is nearly a year
since the same trip last year was cancelled due to  freezing weather which resulted in the following post.
 

http://brooksandbecks.blogspot.com/2010/12/grayling-and-nativity-in-snow.html.

My box of Grayling bugs and nymphs was up to scratch. From size 14s to size 20 with lead or tungsten or barely any weight at all...But would any work there magic on Thymus,,,

Well this wednesday the reorganised day arrived.  It was somewhat overshadowed by the news from one of our party who is an accomplished angler and even guides on the beat when he had announced that conditions were tough, this translates as bloody difficult for us mere mortals.  The river was very low, flow was canal like and this pristine of chalk streams carried an unusual murkiness that meant sight fishing to individual fish was very hard as the gravel bottom was silty and weed beds obscured the fish. 

Even though the fishing was very tough grayling were caught ,  none  to my rod I must add.  My success was with a couple of out of season trout. They were two of the very few rising fish that I saw that day.  But the

day was great, interest and enthusiasm constantly refreshed and challenged by the glimpses of the large grayling that populate that stretch I saw several fish that must have been 2lb plus and the beat holds fish that greatly exceed that 2lb milestone.

I saw how effective a tenkara outfit can be for close range nymphing and suffered the frustration of missing countless takes as the fish toyed with my less than perfect presentation. When you could cast to visible fish I watched my nymph drfit past them, my attempts at unducing a take were treated with distane. I am certain the my nymph was taken by the fish only to be released within a nano second , my gentle strike seemed to take place about a century to late, 

But at the end of the day I reflected on an enjoyable day. It was a lovely river with plenty of good fish there was good company and that ever present anticipation of what the next cast might hold and at the end of the evening there was even a fishermans sunset to send us on our way.

Addenda : I fished this in late 2017 ,  sadly the decent levels of fish seem to have crashed and very few fish remain .. 

More changes on the river,....

Just a few days after I publish my rant about the loss of wildlife ,  the telegraph publishes this:   Its nice to know I am not on my own....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/country-diary/8866765/Time-to-prey-on-predators.html


Andy

What changes for the river

I went for a walk down by my local beck a few days ago and I got to thinking how the fauna of this part of the world has changed so much in the last half century,  I have lived hereabouts all my life.  The beck I fish now was my playground as a kid and I have seen all the changes over the last near 50 years.  I have always been bit of a bird and animal watcher and one pocket in my fishing waistcoat always carries a tiny pair of roof prism bins.... Anyway when I was out the other day I saw Grey squirrels by the gang load. I saw signs of the resident otter and several roe deer and walked by a couple of active badger setts, what I didnt see was much in the way of bird life. 

Now when I was a kid I remember that the woods around here didnt hold a single squirrel nor did they have any deer and badgers were a real rarity.  As for otters they were something you saw at a zoo or in books,  but the woods were full of birdlife and the little local beck side was alive with smaller finches and stuff. Now when you can see the hedgrows through the balsam and the bloody giant hogweed they seem deserted  apart from collared doves and magpies ,  even the bands of starlings so common in the past would be a welcome sight again.  In the countryside around we have buzzards in abundance and even Peregrines nesting on the castle headland but the small stuff has a tiny population compared to the past. 

As for the beck itself well that has changed to.  I can remember seeing the banks black with the elver runs that used to come upstream in that strange annual ritual.  I could not have imagined that such super abundance could dissapear completely. In the wider picture we have signal crayfish invading and now the bloody killer shrimps.  I bet we see a lot more of those in the years to come. 

We seem to continue to develop a worrying unbalanced ecology where the in vogue stuff gets supported and helped but in the process damages the rest of the system and dominant species continue to overun the rest. The ecology that had some sort of natural balance is dissapearing as fast as ever.  We hear on the news the RSPB are hailing record numbers of birds of prey.  Other bodies praise the rise in the otter population, and whilst  the birds of prey are now abundant and the Otters which are nice to see are becoming a problem in some areas.

 I am not suggesting that wholesale culling should take place , but until we as a society accept that we do live in a managed enviroment and manage it properly , that is all of it not just the bit that we are been monitored and KPId on . Then it will continue to be a cock up.    In some ways we have come so far rivers now appear to be clean and the industrial pollution problems are dissapearing , Instead we have hidden dangers, fertiliser run of and the effects of hormones from the birth control pill that now get into the rivers.  Or whats left of so many after abstraction of ground water to water mono culture plants and wash more fertiliser into the rivers.

I know this was just a rant and offers no solutions but it worrys me what sort of a world we will leave for future generations and I see no sign that anyone is willing to grasp the whole bloody nettle they just want to hold on to their particuler leaf whilst the root of the plant may be dying,......

Andy

A time for reflection.

Last weekend saw me out on the bank again after Grayling .  Trips to the river now are a two edged affair, will a mild day encourage the ladies to flirt with a bit of surface action ?, or will cold or unstable water levels send them skulking to the depths?. I will plumb the depths with the czech style heavy nymphs when I have to but much prefer to see that lovely boiling rise as the fly is snatched from the surface. and if I am honest I struggle with the nymph and know its an area I need to improve.

What that means is that  I can be guilty of neglecting all other  approachs and try to cling on to the surface fly when Autumn is here.  I am not a dry fly snob but I will often persevere with the dry when I could catch more with a nymph. 

This weekend saw such a trip the fish above was the only one that I could persuade to come to the surface . The last hour I resorted to a heavy pink shrimp and caught three more.  I feel sure fishing the nymph sooner would have given results.

Thinking about this and seeing the threads on forums and other blogs  about what you have achieved this season has made me think again as to what it is that presses our individual buttons about this sport.  Plainly there are those for whom the fly tying has almost become the overiding passion ,  for others its the collection of rods and reels.  Others still the pursuit of that elusive target weight specimen. Or a larger number of fish than last year .  There are even those whom I am convinced just talk about it .

 Certainly for me all those things are important although my gear is a pretty motley collection and my flies are somewhat variable in quality and I certainly dont keep any sort of record of my catches other than on my blog. I guess more than anything the quality of the fishing and its surroundings is top for me and if such a place has good fish then even better.  I live close close to several high quality stocked fisheries.  Holding large high quality well finned fish but for me they have limited appeal because they are man made featureless lakes.  I have several friends who love those places and am glad for their enthusiasm but I am dissapointed when these same friends accompany me to a small hidden gem of a stream but do not share my enthusiam for the wondrous markings on the specimen 12oz wild brownie they spent 20 minutes catching...

I guess all this is just defines why fly fishing is such a popular and adictive pastime.  Should you  be a collector or  an obssesive a born again hippy or even an ultra competitive type the sport can become what ever you want it to be.  Even if you just want to talk or write about it...

Anyway following that reflection here my idea of a lovely river...

The soft autumn light does make the countryside look its best so even when the fishing is slow the surroundings can help.  The leaves are really turning now and a windy day or two will see the river surface covered with rafts of leaves

One good windy week and the river will be full of leaves and perhaps with all the bugs and flies that live on them...

Thirty or forty years years ago I would not have given all of this a thought all that was important was catching fish, lots of them. The pleasure arose from the capture and not from the method employed or the surroundings.  When I was eleven I fished with a teacher at my school, it was due to him I first held a fly rod, He showed me how to catch chub with a black gnat on his split cane rod with a silk line.  I was fascinated and that day lit a spark that smouldered for years till I was able to take up the fly rod for myself. 

When I met him many years later he revealed he had given up fishing he said that he still loved fly fishing but that for him the climax was to get the fish to rise and the subsequent playing and landing and unhooking of the fish was merely a further distraction and had even become an unpleasurable experience.  I dont beleive that my own thoughts will ever head to that conclusion but I find it fascinating that one sport can generate so many views and feelings.

Invertebrate Monitoring

I recently attended a days invertebrate monitoring workshop run by the riverfly partnership.  It was an excellent day and increased both my knowledge and awareness of what lives in the river.  It was well run and informative it was also highly enjoyable,  thanks to Stuart Croft the gent who ran the day.

The practical part of the day was great fun.  Now I have an excuse for turning over the odd rock and having a poke about in the river. It was fascinating and all sorts turned up in the trays.

The Anglers monitoring initiative enables anglers to monitor their own rivers in an organised and effective way.  It allows them to keep a constant and valuable check on the health of their own river.  Allowing any changes in the population of  invertebrates to be monitored. 

If you wish to add to your own knowledge and enjoyment of the rivers you fish and know more about the  fly and nymphs in the waters and also in the process be able to help in some way in their protection I can totally recommend it.

http://www.riverflies.org/index/riverfly_monit.html

End of season blues.

This year I am determined to avoid these.  I am one of those  individuals that really suffer at this time of year .  I truly beleive that there is something in the SAD syndrome theory.  Personally I find the whole back end of the year difficult to deal with.  The combination of  the rivers been shut for trout , the dark mornings and long nights conspire to reduce my energy levels and general enthusiasm. 

This year I will organise myself and not let the malaise grip me.  There will be more weekend grayling fishing . My fly tying will be organised and has already started with a plan to refill all the boxes before the spring and not leave it to a week before the start of the new season.

I have joined the fly dressers guild and will be making a real effort to tie flies that dont look well chewed even before they have been. 

I also have a plan B , Plan B consists of visiting a commercial stillwater if the depression gets to much. I am just not sure I could handle catching stumpy finned rainbows. So will try and find a suitable venue...

Andy

The end of another season and another another lesson learnt

Sunday was the last day I will get out out trout fishing for this year.  The occasion was marked by a trip to the Ure with a guest. We both had a good day.  The weather whilst not been perfect was as good as you can reasonably expect with Autumn nearly upon us.  Fish were caught but as is usually the case wth rivers it had to be worked at and the fish earnt.  On the day small size 16 cdc emergers were the flies that worked for me.  Fished in the faster runs for the Grayling and in the tails of the pools and the eddies for the trout.  In the early afternoon they both rose freely anough. The best of the fish were the two I picture here the grayling was a very long fish that seemed thin for its length and came to the net without  to much fuss the brownie was different it fought like something twice its size. 

later on in the afternoon between five and six.  The grayling had long since finished their activity but I fancied the last hour in a large pool on the river.  There would be trout rising there I was sure.  The pool has a large gravel bar down the middle of it and I was stood on there which gives you command of most of the water.  I was aware of fish rising to my left towards the bank but casts towards them were into the setting sun and after wasting about 20 minutes without a single response and not willing to wade back down and across the pool due to the small time left I decided I should move as I had agreed a finish time with my fishing companion. 

Reeling in the fly came skittering back across the surface a bow wave followed it and a splashy rise failed to produce a hook up.  A light switched on in my brain and I worked my way back down the pool .

As I reached the bank I spotted them , sedges dozens of them . The sun had stopped me seeing them. I had been to complacent and missed a golden opportunity.

I had about 10 minutes so I waded back in and put on a sedge pattern,  in a rush I foolishly didnt swap the 3lb tippet for something stronger,  I think you can guess the rest . Second retreive and a big bow wave followed by a savage take.  The tippet parted and a large brown jumped and swam free.  I should have known better.  .

It was almost as if the river was leaving me with a rap across the knuckles and leaving me with a hundred lines for the close season . 
Dont stop thinking and concentrating
Dont stop thinking and concentrating
Dont stop thinking and concentrating
Dont stop.........

Late Summer grayling on the Ure,,,

At this time of year I I think that a good few hours out on the river is especially precious .  Days are shorter now and short days mean the end of my preferred evening fishing.  So when I saw the weather forecast this week and it was predicting Thursday to be a day when the recent winds will reduce and the days leading up to it been dry a half day was booked at work and after lunch I headed to the river

The river surprised me when I got there.  There was about a foot more water in it than I was expecting but it was running pretty clear .  Very coloured as usual but clean.  It was also colder than expected, I made a mental note that next time it will be the neoprene waders and not the lightweight breathables.

After starting of with  tan and then olive and brown coloured klinks and not getting a sniff of a fish.  I swapped to a black klink. Actually I had a few that I had bought as my fly box was very thin and tying time has been sadly lacking As I prepared to lengthen line to cast again I dumped a few feet of line on the water surface and had a take almost at my feet , a tiny grayling showed me I had found the right fly.

I had about 8 or 9 nice Grayling of a respectable size in about 90 minutes of activity in three different runs.  Nice fish including this one with a most unusual scale pattern.

The water was pefect for the dry fly .  It has better clarity than the pictures would suggest and the extra foot of water put some real pace into the runs.  I am gratefull that the grayling will rise for a fly well into the autumn. I will fish with a nymph for them but I love fishing dry fly.  Saying that one of my aims this year is to increase my knwledge and capability of fishing the deep nymph , czech style.  I am particulaly interested in the use of braid long leaders to aid bite detection, a method that is been discussed on various forums at the moment.  I will be reporting through the winter on how my efforts are rewarded.

The Grayling were of a nice size and offer much optimism for future years .  The fish were in fine condition , they are my favourite game fish. With the  benefit to us of extending the fly fishing season well into the winter months.

This is the black klinkhammer that did the trick,  I have carefully retained one and my fly tying will in future include this variation , they look to be about a 16 with a thread body although I find klink hooks a mystery as the sizes from different manufacturers to vary by an enormous amount.  I have also purchased some aerowing material to start using for posts.  I reckon I can tie a reasonable klink but not a really good one.. That is work in progress..

After a couple of hours the grayling ceased activity but odd trout were rising in the slower back eddies , I ended up with three , a daddy long legs accounted for this beautifully coloured fish.  Although the daddies seem to have been thin on the ground this year I wouldnt venture on to an autumn river without some in my fly box

Scottish Spate rivers

Following on from my last post there is a small spate river that offers a bit of sea trout fishing if water levels are up to scratch.  Sadly once again the rain gods failed to smile,  but been an eternal optimist which is surely an anglers greatest gift , that and just been do damned stubborn to give up.  I decided that one morning I would take advantage of the very hight tides and fish at the mouth of the river and sea if anything could be picked up in the salt water.

As I got down to the river mouth I wondered what the sheep were fussing about and realised that they had ended up marooned on a new island the high tide had created , they soon settled down and just watched me. I bet the lamb has a lovely flavour with them eating all the salt covered grass.

It was interesting wading out along the river bank that was now covered by a foot or two of sea water . There was some sign of activity there were a few small silver fish jumping where the sea water was meeting the fresh water. I kept a careful eye on the river bank position a wrong step and I would be in pretty deep.

 Despite a couple of hours of effort I couldnt raise anything , however I did nearly give my wife a heart attack as she said when she looked out of the window I seemed to be wading in the middle of the sea as the tide was in so far.  There was one accomplished fisher that was doing better than me on the sea loch banks.  I saw it with two fish one looked like a decent pollack the other an eel. 

The day after I had an exploratory up the river to see if there were any little native brownies.  The local scenery here is stunning with some really inviting pools. But wet flies and dries alike failed to raise any enthusiasm.

The damp climate makes for abundant growth funghi are growing everwhere . Wonder if they are edible

on the last full day of my holiday the rains at last came and an early morning session saw the river about 2ft up ,  In a few hours fishing I hooked into one decent sea trout ,  sadly as I drew it to the net I could see it was hooked right on the neb.  and sure enough it detatched itself pretty quickly.  The river lost that two foot of water in about three hours,  The speed of run of is incredible.

This is the pool below the road bridge I hooked that solitary fish just infront of the scaffolding.  Sadly The fish is still in the river.  The place is beautiful we watched Ospreys hunting on the river and the sea loch from the lounge window and had buzzards over the garden. 

The Cottage we rented is on this estate anyone wanting a holiday for the family combined with the chance for a bit of fishing wont be dissapointed. We rented the Old Kirk...

http://www.kilninver-estate.co.uk/cottages.html

Loch trout in Scotland

Loch Charn

last week I enjoyed a relaxing week away North of the border in Scotland south of Oban at kilninver.  Readers of my blog may have noted we stopped there last year .  Anyway for various reasons we ended up back there this year.   We stayed in a converted Kirk, It wasnt a fishing holiday but rather a holiday with the opportunity to do a little fishing ,  We visited the same place last year I can recomend it. 

As we were on holiday heres a tourist type photo to prove it. This is Inveraray Castle. Whilst the family enjoyed the Castle, myself and my labrador explored the estate and particularly the view of the estate river I still dont know its name ,  I am a habitual bridge leaner how many of you anglers can cross a bridge without a gaze into the depths below .  There were trout there after a few minutes watching its strange how they suddenly become visible.  Its also strange how they remain invisible to non angling companions. 

This year I fished the Little loch Charn which is about a half hour walk up into the hills behind the house we were stopping in its a delightful place and the walk up to it is accompanied by The attention of the resident hoodies, not the inner city type but the crows that seem to follow you up the path... The heather lines the route and the buzzards circle in the sky. The lichen grown thickly on everything and in close up its like a miniature forest.

Loch Charn is a pretty little hill loch that remains invisible till you are pretty much on top of it.  It didnt disspoint though,  its clear peaty waters looked very trouty and I soon found the dinghy which was handily moored in a little cut away section of bank.

This hill loch proved to have nice shallow margins but shelved away very quickly as the short anchor rope in the dinghy proved...  The fish were small but well marked .  They were among the edges of the reed and water lily beds.  They came to the top dropper it needed a small black bushy fly. No doubt taken for a terrestrial .

The fish are dark and very hard fighting for their size. The takes were never shy and the fight was acrobatic.   Its a very different type of fishing for me,  I am used to small rivers and fast water.  At least since I have been fishing this year with spiders I can knot a decent dropper and am now have had a few trips loch fishing , but I am not yet an expert on this style of fishing I also doubt I ever will become one. I visited this loch a couple of times. Once the kids walked up to it with me , my ever faithfull labrador just about went into meltdown at the sight of me rowing out into the lake .

 A few of the fish that were caught over a couple of trips ,  there were many but these few are a fair sample all similer sizes the only difference was the colours, strange how these loch fish vary so much even within a real small area.  

Tiny flies and Brown trout

I had a short trip to the Yorkshire Dove yesterday ,  the river was still reasonably fresh following the recent rains and although at a typical low summer level it was carrying a tinge of colour.  There were few signs of fish rising other than the the tiny fish that were in the fast shallow runs.  The best tactic I have found when the river is slow and there are few rising fish to target is to use a small CDC F fly either a 18 or 20 . This general pattern seems always able to winkle out the odd fish when cast to the holding places and in to likely lies.  Either that or a Nymph into the deeper pools.  Today it was the F Fly approach .

Today three hours fishing resulted in 3 trout it was hard going .  Two were about 4oz apeice the third was this beauty that was sipping something tiny from the edge of the reeds on a slow glide.  It gave a very good account of itself with that paddle of a tail. The fly was a size 20 on a 2lb point.

After witnessing a kick sampling session on the river recently and viewing the results the comment was passed that generally we all fish with flies that are way to large, this after seeing the average size of the nymphs and resultant olives that hatched in the sampling tray afterwards .  A size 20 cdc is about as close a match as you can get.  perhaps the trout dont care , but my view is that sometimes they do and sometimes its essential .  I think that strict imitative patterns are ok but generally what really matters is size and presentation.  So often I see anglers on the river with boxes of different patterns but only in size 14 and maybe 16 , perhaps its because that is what the shops sell.  Who knows?  but I probably use less than a dozen patterns for 95% of my fishing but I will have sizes right down to a 20 , I would have 22s as well but my eyes arent up to the job. I am convinced that fishing flies and nymphs down to a size 20 dramatically increases my catches...

The Dove carrying a little extra colour.....

Autumn is on the way the Grayling are here

Surely the Grayling is amongst the most impressive of our fishes. The grace and colours make the description " the lady of the stream"  richly deserved. It is my favourite fish.

The Ure has now reurned to a sensible level and colour after weeks of extremely low water thanks to  the spates of a couple of weeks ago the river is now at a nicely fishable level.  In the pic below A couple of weeks ago the stones were dry out past the overhanging tree now we are showing a river at a healthy level..  The water now has a deep brown colour but not cloudy.Just like a good strong beer.   

The grayling are in the faster runs but fishing with a dry klinkhammer was difficult the water was so turbulent keeping sight of the fly was a problem . I had to resort to a klink with a bright red foam post.  Not a fly I would pick naturally but given the circumstances,,,

There were were many Olives hatching . You would describe it as a heavy hatch. but surprisingly hardly a fish was seen rising.  I fished a klinkhammer into the faster runs the result was four grayling three of which were of the " three to a pound" variety the fourth a better male fish pictured here.  Not a big fish but a good fish none the less on a day when fish were hard to win.  I didnt see a trout rise all day.

The foam post klink. Not a subtle fly but  workman like and now well chewed .  The Grayling at least seem to enjoy it.  Great for fishing the duo but also good for just staying afloat.  However I muct improve my tying as from time to time the fly was stuck on its side in the surface film,  a position when its not going to fool anything...

The wheat fields shows that Autumn is on the way.  Much as I hate the winter the months of Sept and Oct can bring such great fishing ,  a late sea trout run and the Grayling fishing can make a stunning end to another year.