At close of play take two....

last week I thought the weekend trip would be my last trip of the season but becks like mine that flow quickly can run of as fast as they rise. So on Sunday when I was out doing the monthly invertebrate monitoring I saw rising fish, which together with the clear water was enough reason to fit in one last visit, without it been the last day of the trout season .  I reckoned I could escape for maybe three hours down my beck.

I decided to fish an upstream section a part I only ever fish into Autumn /Winter.  The beck had recovered completely  from the spate of earlier in the week.  This time of year trout can really switch on to feeding and I reckon after two or three days of hiding out of the current they were certainly in the mood.

There was little surface activity a few fish were rising even though lots of small needles were on the wing .  I fished with a small klinkhammer a fly that has proved time and again to be as good at searching for fish as any. A good few decent brownies came to hand.   In fact several of them were as good as you can expect from this stream. For this beck a 1lb fish is a good one and all fight with a tenacity born out of the tough conditions.

An unexpected bonus was catching a Grayling in a stretch that I had long suspected held fish but so far I hadnt located any.  The fish was returned quickly without a picture today was about brown trout.  I will return to that swim further into the Autumn.

 Winter is fast approaching,  but unlike previous years the summer is ending with good water levels. The last spate has helped to clear the summer algae from the rocks and gravels with spawning approaching it has to be a benefit to the river.

The first signs of Autumn are clear falling leaves are now starting to scatter the stream bed.  It wont be long before the first frosts will fill this little stretch of river.

The few hours went quickly aboout a dozen brownies were the result.  The day finished when I needed to change the tippet but when I looked up saw the dimples of rain and looked at the time I realised that the season was finished.  The season had run its course and it was the time to leave the trout alone till next year.