Evenings!

Now we can once more get back to proper dry fly fishing with proper sized flies instead of the budgerigars and canaries we deployed during the festivities with the Drake.  This was brought home to your faithful blogger's attention the other evening when in despite of the presence of many Drake Spinners, the fish eschewed them nearly all, in preference of something much smaller.  They were eating the spinners of the Blue Winged Olive, the Sherry Spinners.  So off with the Poly Prop Spent Gnat (PPSG) and on with a finer tippet and a Poly Prop Sherry (PPS) to the new improved recipe...

It was a lovely evening.  Henry was glad to be coming along and behaved remarkably well just as long as fish were being caught.  Moments of reflective contemplation were interrupted by plaintive whinings to get on with it and go catch another!

The meads were beautifully spotted with purple clover and yellow buttercups.  Their colours seemed more luxuriant in the setting sunlight.

There were flies in abundance...

Rising fish taking advantage of their welcome presence...

and so it went on until it was too dark to see the fly anymore.

I realised I hadn't made a single photograph all evening of any fish so put that right with this snap of a little brown trout that I decided was to be the last fish of the evening as we had a mile or so to walk back home and Henry needed his evening session of retriever training... 

On the way back he found a soccer ball in the river.  It was deflated somewhat, so he was able to get hold of it in his jaws and bring it in to his pal to whom all "prey" must be handed in as tribute!


RR