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