The Source

What to expect was a puzzle for the mind before "finding" it this last Monday.  A project to document the Derbyshire Wye along its short journey from the moors west of Buxton to the confluence with the Derwent at Rowsley Bridge would be incomplete without a picture of the true source.

Having seen the miserable dribble that begins the mighty river Trent it was natural to be expecting not much at all...

Wrong! 

180 degrees wrong!

The source of the Derbyshire Wye is a beautifully shiny, black cauldron cut into the peat bogs of Featherbed Moss, more or less 530 metres above sea level.  The sight is a much more prepossessing spectacle than was expected.  Delight was tempered by the squalls of rain that kept starting and stopping with a horizontal fury that ensured your blogger would be working with cold wet fingers, doing his best to protect the old view camera, its priceless lens and the vulnerable film holders, all the while racing against the fast setting sun.

The Source

The First Yards



No Ducks....   up here the Wye is serenaded by the Go Back! Go Back! of the Red Grouse

Was it worth it? 



You the viewer are the sole arbiter...







Regular Rod

When?

In England, this July has seen us experiencing heat wave conditions and frankly, dry fly fishing in the day has been almost a pain of a pleasure.  You may know this song, which goes some way to illustrate the folly of trying to behave as if the sun is not beating down on our heads and the eyelidless heads of our quarry too!

What have these two fish got in common? 

Yes they were caught at night.  Face the west and you can see the fly until it is quite properly dark.  Unfortunately the hour of proper darkness is getting earlier every night so do try to make the most of the wonderful fly life that appears on the surface of the river on summer nights.

Here's a favourite spot of mine and when the sinking sun tinges the sides of the trees and plants  with copper, brass and gold, it is time to start fishing, NOT time to go home for tea!

Regular Rod

The Definition of a Yorkshireman...

...is a Scotsman with the generosity squeezed out of him!

We Yorkshire folk, even those of us living in Derbyshire, hate wasting stuff such as the very expensive polypropylene yarn like the Tiemco Aero Wing used for the wings of the Poly Prop Sherry (PPS)

I also get a nagging feeling of waste when chucking away items that may have finished their original intention but are so nicely engineered it seems to be a sacrilege not to find a good alternative use for them.  Such items include 35mm film cassettes.  Here's a way to economise on the amount of yarn used up in tying a few flies and put those old 35mm film cassettes to good use...

Just wind the yarn onto the spool, load it back into the cassette with one end of yarn sticking out of the original light trap and there you have an ideal dispenser that saves you from wasting that little bit that is always left if you simply cut off a length to tie a few flies with.  You gain the same economy that you get by using a bobbin holder for your thread.

RR