A tale of two rivers

last week I had a very short session on my local beck.  very few fish were rising but I rose three and hooked and landed them all.  Gratifying and immensely enjoyable. All the fish were rising in the tails of the white water under the wear. However It took me a while to work out what they were rising to , Eventually I realised it was to tiny midges that I spotted drifting in the surface.  This was even though there was a smattering of LDOs drfifting down.  After spending ages casting to rising fish without moving any with an Olive imitation a switch to a tiny size 20 f fly brought a pretty immediate response.  Three came in pretty rapid time and I called it a day.  The day worked out as the books say it should happen .  Identify rising fish, work out what they arising to select an imitation and bobs your uncle. Not often my days go like that.

Now Sunday was my first day that I had ventured over to the Ure this year.  The journey went fine, on arrival the river looked well.  The usual colour and at a good level when I tried to take a picture though  I realised that my camera battery was still in the charger where I had placed it the previous night.  So you will have to take make do with this nice spring scene taken on the beck. Fishing wise the day was a contrast to the beck trip I started with a duo and had an early success when a decent brownie was landed on the klink.  Things got a bit frustrating after that , I dropped a thumping Grayling of at the net after it took the nymph.  It would have probably been my best graying from the Ure.  Then brief hatches of olives kept bringing the fish to the surface and and I switched to an olive imitation all my patterns were treated with disdain until I tried a quill bodied CDC paradun pattern this seemed to do the trick and I managed three more although I missed many more.  The fish splashing at the flies but not taking them cleanly. It was as if the fish had forgotten how to rise and take.  Perhaps they were as rusty as me.  So two trips now with rising fish. The weather is settling and I have a holiday in the dales soon things are looking up...

Size really doesn`t matter

Well ladies and Gents let me introduce you to a very special fish.  After nearly 7 months of gales, floods , snow and freezing temperatures loosely described as the 2012/ 13 close season  this leviathan was my first brown trout of the 2013 season.  Magnificent ? perhaps not .  But oh was I glad to catch it.  A brief hatch of Olives persuaded it to rise. In fact I was less than sure that it was a trout.  I was half expecting yet another grayling. But for all its diminutive size a trout has not looked as good for a long time. As although a couple of bigger trout followed this one as we men are constantly told size really doesnt matter and today it certainly didnt matter to me.

However with next week forecasting gales and floods it seems things will once again go on hold for a few days .  But soon the first real hatches will arrive: hawthorns will blunder about and crash land in the river. The grannom will be making there ungainly flights. Surely the warmer days are close now we can only wait and see.

Rising fish......

Sunday was the first day the temperature reached the dizzy heights of double figures,  10 deg to be precise .  I had the opportunity to escape to the local stream.  So with the hope of rising fish I ventured forth.The river is still in its winter guise.  There is no sign of green other than the snowdrops and the first shoots of wild garlic.

As I walked through the farmyard the bleating of sheep and lambs reminded me it is spring. The sheep are all in the process of lambing and have been brought in to the sheds for protection.  Whilst chatting to the farmer and his wife they thought it was the latest spring in living memory. Everything was at least a month behind. 

For two or three hours over lunchtime it felt like a spring day should feel.  Entering the stream the sunshine was just doing enough to persuade trickles of Olives to emerge and come sailing down.  I was enjoying the feel of sunshine when I spotted the first rise.  The next two hours brought seven fish to surface flies  all out of season grayling though.  All released quickly.   Not one trout put in an appearance .  Every time I spotted a rising fish I hoped that the culprit would be a brownie but as yet they are still laying doggo. 

It was great to see hatching flies. It was wonderful to cast at rising fish in sunshine and to feel the bend of a rod and the pulse of a fish.  At last I feel the season is underway all I need is for the brownies to wake up and join in...

Its bleeding cold.....

Well the season has started pretty much as I feared …. Badly . The biting easterly wind has not stopped all week . The water is bleeding cold and over two short trips the only fish that I have got to the net are a few ever willing Grayling.  I managed to hook two small trout but released both at distance.As it says in the books the LDO have appeared during my visits hatching promply at two thirty, the only problem was the fish aren’t reading the books and I appeared to be the only one that noticed them.  I have only seen one rising fish. Simply put , as yet the fish are not looking up.  On a brighter note the rivers look stunning as clear as I have ever seen them. At good levels and looking good for some warm weather. 

I did have a short chat with a guy enjoying his first ever trip on the rivers.  Well enjoying was probably the wrong word.  He was struggling with the breeze and his new gear. He was struggling for a few reasons. Firstly his new three weight rod which was a fastish action job. In the “breeze” the three weight line was hard to control and he did say he was going to get a four weight line for it.

Apparently the shop he bought it from had said he may need to over line the rod. Now to me habitually over lining is nonsense.  Surely you decide what line weight you want to use and buy a rod that will fish it at the ranges you want.  As for three weights , well yes on their day for dries they are great fun but as an all round fishing rod give me a four weight any day. 

Whilst we were chewing the fat he commented on my “old fashioned “waders.  A fine pair of PVC Ocean chesties. They form my Spring and Autumn wardrobe, I have breathables for summer and Neoprene for silly season fishing.  Now I cant understand why so few people wear them now. Tough / comfy / warm and getting in and out of them isn’t like the 20minute aerobics session neoprenes put me through.  Sartorial elegance they aint but they are blackthorn proof and great for sliding down banks on your arse.  But the clincher is I looked a lot warmer than he did after standing in that river for half an hour.  It doesn’t matter how dapper you look if you aint comfy you aint going to concentrate……..