First trip of 2012 and its going to be a good year.

Was down my local beck today . Was agreeing the sites where I will be doing the invertebrate monitoring this year .  It has been a lovely day clear and sunny but very cold.  The beck is very low in fact its a worry as the flow is something like mid summer levels.   The water is also crystal clear however that did allow us to see that the brown trout have been busy with the scars of redds everywhere.  Even though we werent fishing at the time just being down by the water looking at the wildlife and listening to sound of the stream had a positive effect and seemed to help to break the gloom that winter spreads.

Anyway as I had my waders on I decided I would have a couple of hours after the grayling.  My trips down there earlier in the winter had been fruitless and was worried that the otters etc had cleaned out the fish in the low clear water.

Anyway after a couple of hours I had nearly worked through the last pool with the little size 16 goldhead shrimp, the line darted away and a little 9 inch grayling came to hand , It was great to see they are still there. Then next cast into the same table top size area and the line twitched and a gentle strike met solid resistance.  Afer a brief struggle I had a lovely cock fish in the net 17inches from nose to fork of tail,  a lovely fish for this beck. 

Finally as I clambered out of the pool this little bunch of snowdrops caught my eye,  seeing them makes me realise spring isnt far away . Its going to be a good year ...

PS sorry about the poor pics.  Camera was left in the car so the phone had to be used.....