Epicurean Delights!

Not so delightful if you were ever as slow as I was this evening in working out what on Earth the fish had suddenly turned their attention to.  All the fish mind, all of them!  There were no stragglers carrying on with the Blue Winged Olives they'd been swallowing all afternoon and delivering some great Sport for your happy blogger.  The fly would drift over a nice trout perfectly and up it would come only to eat something two inches away from my fly.

At one point I had a fish rise to one of the knots in my leader!  Whatever the real thing was it was small, not too small though as the rise was to the first knot that joins the 0.4mm diameter monofilament to the first part of the mid-section that I make out of 0.3mm diameter monofilament!!!  Maybe we worry to much about whether fish are put off by strong tippets?  I put on my favourite small fly for fish eating smuts or aphids.  Sturdy's Fancy on a size 20 hook.  Nothing took it but the rises were still being enthusiastically made.  Henry was getting impatient for some excitement.

Then it came to me like a blow!  The weather was not very nice.  Cold winds and intermittent squally showers between periods of delightful but weak sunshine. 

Concentrate!  Ah yes, I bet some of these little flies are Iron Blue Duns and I bet the fish are eating those and eschewing all others.  On with the fake.  Cast again.  Slurp!  Aha, the rod is heaved over, Henry is up on his toes and wagging his tail, all is well with the world and God is in his Heaven!

Sport was very brisk indeed where only half an hour before it had not been possible to buy a rise.  In no time at all there were three more McNabs, to add to the one managed earlier before the Derbyshire Wye's epicures had changed their diet for a few hours,   

Strolling back up river towards home we managed to catch one more grayling and then my reel, which I had been struggling with for the last three hours, fell apart, signalling time to go in for supper...









Regular Rod

A Nice Challenge

Here, between the trailing dead twigs and the overhanging sawn off branch, is "the Spot" where the fly has to fit inside, land gently, with enough slack to avoid drag, then to drift to the left under the branches along that bubble line...

Ah, but here is the angle seen by the angler when sat down to avoid scaring the fish!

However, even that is not the end of the matter because as well as sitting down, the cast must be made from here on this side of the river... 

Of course you could do it, what's the problem?

Err...

Well, to tell you the Truth...

it's this "space" for the back cast, which ups the ante so much that to fold would be the sensible option.  Sensible?  Whoever heard of a "sensible" dry fly angler?




Regular Rod

Short Evenings...

Forgot the camera again!  I must stop rushing about...  Sorry again about the quality of the 'phone photos! There were spinners drifting down river as I came out of the garden door and fish were eating them steadily. 

Henry was pretty good but got incredibly excited when a brown trout dragged me all over the shallow pool we were fishing. Six or eight inches of water makes for trout acting like Bonefish and side strain is not only your friend but against such boisterous fish is also your only chance of success.

He was rather puzzled when the trout was safely released after such obvious hard work by his pal to get it in the net.  He spent a good few minutes searching the water to see if he could help me by finding it again!

A splendid evening in despite of it being only a couple of hours long.

We will soon be reaching that time when the Sport is centred on the hour or so before and the three or four hours after noon, so make the most of these short evenings while you can.  I reckon a fortnight at most is all we have.  Fishing will need a scive from the middle of the month until the end of the season to be sure of Sport.


Regular Rod

Freebie!

The Chatsworth Country Fair has devised a way to keep the Riff Raff out.  They put the price beyond the reach of ordinary folk.  Imagine paying £20 to be allowed to go shopping!

The big attraction is to see the RAF's Red Arrows (still only 7 of them since the sad accident last year) doing their magnificent display of precision and skill.  So your faithful blogger, definitely part of the Riff Raff who thinks £20 is far, far too much for entry, decided to fish yesterday in the next valley, instead of visiting the show, and so enjoyed the top of the bill attraction for free from the banks of the Derbyshire Wye!!!

There was only one hurried snap in the dusk of a splendid female grayling that fought like a trout before she was netted and released. 

 

The rest of the pictures were of the marvellous Red Arrows that, hopefully, you may enjoy...

Regular Rod