Visitor or Resident?

It is remarkable how two anglers on the same river, on the same day, in the same conditions, can feel differently about the fishing.  Saturday was a very hot, sunny day, as days go in England it was anyway.  It made sense to fish until dark and during the day to look for rising fish in shaded places.

One angler reported afterwards that it had been important to keep changing the fly to suit what was being eaten.  He didn't stick with a favourite fly.  He also happened to take his time and invested heavily in those three principles...

He signed off, filled with joy, saying that it was as if fishing in Dry Fly Paradise.

The other didn't think so.  He had found it very difficult to find rising fish but was happy enough that he had caught some on a fly he favoured.  He reported that he had fished  "Pretty much the whole stretch........just walked and cast at any likely looking spot.........good job I had the whole day!"

This might be a choice deliberately made as a visitor wanting to see all 8 miles of the water available on this stretch of river.  It was a choice that was very likely to gravitate against the angler as it left little time to get to know a piece of the water well enough to cease being a VISITOR and instead become, even  if only for a short time, a RESIDENT.

Numbers of fish caught are not all that important here but enjoyment is.  I can't help feeling the second angler missed out by his VISITOR status whilst the first angler enjoyed the benefit of becoming a RESIDENT for the day.

It is hard to explain.  I hope you can understand what I am trying to say here...

Regular Rod

The Year Turns Full Circle

This blog does anyway...

Last year about this time I reported on the rise forms telling me which fly to try and I ended up using the Poly Prop Sherry (PPS) to pleasing effect.  Recent evenings this year have delivered great results on variations of the PPS that I am trying, which have their bodies made with an alternative to Seal's Fur.  Tonight, in my enthusiasm to continue the trials I started with my synthetic bodied PPS making the error of not OBSERVING the rises carefully to determine what the fish were eating.  I kept missing that nose angle that gives the clue to consider a fake of a midge type fly. 

With no fish eating my PPS I was brought to my senses and so after watching carefully the angled upwards nose showed so frequently in the rises that midges surely must be on the menu.  The fly was changed to a traditional fake for midges and reed smuts and the like, the Sturdy's Fancy on a size 20 Drennan Super Specialist hook with an eye just big enough for the 5x tippet to be threaded through.  With such small flies the instinct is often to put on a much finer tippet but 5x gives you more chance of avoiding a break if you end up with a zoo creature on in the dark.

The results were remarkable. Fish after fish came to the fly and so it became necessary to move from pool to pool in the fading light to avoid hammering the fish too much in each spot.  It was actually a very easy night and a time for restraint.  So after a nice brown trout returned at only 21:40, the line was reeled in followed by a pleasant stroll home in the sultry and scented night air.

It is on nights like tonight when I am convinced once again that we are truly blessed to be anglers...







Regular Rod

Time Left?

I apologise in advance if you have already come across this simple way to see how you are doing for time.  Fishing in the late afternoon and into the evening you may want to have some idea of how much time is left before sunset.  The method is to open your hand as wide as you can.  Aim your little finger at the horizon.  Count the spaces between the fingers going up until you reach the sun.  Each space equates to about an hour.  So in this picture you can make out where the sun is at the time of taking the photograph by the little flare around my second finger below the tip.  This indicates that sunset will be in just under two hours.  In summer this often helps me decide when to move to get ready for the light changing and the fly life to get very intense and the evening rise to get underway.  Give it a try if you haven't already.  It is remarkably accurate, but you must force your hand open as wide as you can.

Regular Rod

Distraction - Self Inflicted!

Did I make a mistake last night?  The recent rain has at last raised my mother river, the Derbyshire Wye, to a nice level.  Naturally it had been made brown for two or three days.  Last night it looked brown but fishable at 17:00 so I thought it would be a good idea to do two things at once.  Henry was bored out of his skull.  I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms through the lack of dry fly fishing.  I could walk the couple of miles down river to Duck Holds Wood and take Henry with me to perk up his spirits.  I could fish, he could get some exercise and practice his investigative skills.

On hooking my first fish it splashed in a spectacular manner.  This was too much for Henry.  He too made a splash as he charged through the margin into the river, headlong and struck out vigorously swimming towards my fish!  "Henry! Leave it!!", I bellowed.  He did so and swam back to the bank climbing out in time to see me bringing the fish, a nice grayling, in the net over the margin for me to unhook.  Henry wanted to get hold of the fish and I loudly told him, "NO!!!  LEAVE IT!!!"  He did so, looked at me with blinking eyes and thought I was completely mad to release it unharmed after going to the trouble of catching it.  Henry doesn't understand C&R.

The Sport became more and more brisk as the evening passed.  Trout and grayling were all feasting on a mix of olives that were now hatching in profusion.  My Kite's Imperial was all that was needed.

Henry and I wandered back up river together.  It was a good time, plenty of fish fell for the Kite's Imperial on the way home, but I'm sure I would have been much more efficient had I been alone.

Henry is a fine chap.  I love him dearly but his preferred Sport is definitely hunting and shooting game birds.  It is all so much easier for him to understand.

Henry

Maybe it was a mistake, but it was still fun - for both of us!



Regular Rod

Night Moves...

...and Comfortable Arrangements!

Late to get out last night I wandered downriver still undecided as to where and how I might start the evening's proceedings.  I met Paul, a fellow angler who had been more diligent than I in getting out and fishing through the day.  He reported encouraging news of his day thus far.  We chatted very briefly about a nearby tributary we both know well, mutually bewailed the drought conditions and then went our opposite ways to start fishing for the evening.  He going up and I going down river. 

I started in a comfortable place, for me, which meant I could sit on the exposed roots of a giant crack willow.  It is one of those spots I mentioned last year, where in low water the angler can get almost unrestricted access to water that is otherwise awkward to cover well.  As well being very comfortable these roots and trapped silt offer the angler the added advantage of sitting crosslegged like a garden gnome thus maintaining a low profile and remaining hidden from the fish rising upstream.

Here is the very spot.  Moss has grown on the trapped silt, soil is forming as other plants take root and I have the benefit of the tree trunk to lean against as a very easing back rest. 


However, it would not be such a comfortable place to lay a fish for hook removal before release.  In Town many of us regulars use unhooking mats to protect the fish, but in Town we are not tramping miles between fishing stations.  Even where the river flows through Elysian fields, the ground is not always a fish friendly place to lay our captives momentarily, before they are free to get on with their lives.  Remember those overtrousers I favour?  They make an excellent unhooking mat to lay the wet net on and they are always there ready for the job if you are fishing on your backside in the quest for invisibility.

I couldn't resist making an attempt at photographing the rise forms of a fish sipping away at spinners.  This one shows the elongated ring(s) nicely.  I apologise again for the noisy image and the somewhat excessive Photoshoppery to try and overcome the low light levels but it shows quite nicely the so very distinctive shape of the spinner eater's rise that signals to us we should be putting on a little spinner fake and making the most of these piscine Night Moves.


As always, click the images to get a closer look and click them again for an even closer view.

Regular Rod

"Heartbreak Corner"

This is a corner on my local river that others have named "Heartbreak Corner".  It's a ludicrous name.  The fishing here is as hard, or as simple, as anywhere else on the river.  Nevertheless, it always manages to teach me something whenever I visit there. 

Three things could easily lead to failure on this long bend. 

It is usually approached on the inside of the bend.  This means that the water will be flowing more slowly on the angler's bank, where it is shallower due to gravel and silt deposition, than on the far bank where the water is deep as the stronger flow has scoured the channel deeper.  The surface currents are different so drag has to be controlled, or else the fly will not drift naturally, the fish will ignore it and heartbreak could be the result.

One of the three basic principles is frequently broken here too.  I have seen anglers standing up next to the water, sometimes wearing pale hats (even white) whilst they cast, and cast, and cast.  Heartbreaking!

On many days there will be multiple species of flies drifting through here.  It is easy to see one sort and decide to start fishing with a representative of that fly.  If the fly chosen is not actually the one that the fish are preoccupied with then you can have your heart broken as the fish rise, whilst you cast, and they rise, and you cast, and they keep rising and you keep casting thinking "I just need to get the fly to land right and I will catch him!"  Unless you stop, look hard and watch for the flies actually being eaten then you will again have your heart broken...

On this bend is a superb hidy hole.  There is nearly always a good fish rising under the branches and twigs here.  There is a gap.  I know it is possible to get the fly in through that gap.  But there is a tree behind the kneeling position and it is just at exactly the distance to catch the fly on the edge of the back cast.  It means the trajectory of the cast has to be made at an angle to avoid the tree behind and then a mid-air mend made to get the fly travelling in the right direction to land in the hidy hole.  I've managed to get the fly in there a few times but it never gets in there far enough and with enough slack in the tippet and leader to drift over the fish convincingly.  It is downright heartbreaking!

Long may it be so!  Dry fly fishing should be a meritocracy!  Someone better than me will manage to cast in there and catch that fish one day.  I hope the tree behind is never felled...

Regular Rod

Now you see 'em...

...now you don't!

Okay so I have this back to front.  You can walk by a stretch of water on a sunny day and looking at the river you can often be forgiven for asking yourself:

"Where are all the fish?"

You wander on worrying that there may be none there.

Come by in a summer's evening though and you will find yourself on the other end of the see-saw.  My pocket camera is very good but like other small cameras it refreshes rather slowly compared to a professional's DSLR or Leica M9.  So the sequence below is over four and a half minutes, but the results would have been very similar if taken over four and half seconds with a quicker camera.  The pictures are noisy due to the low light levels but you can still see the activity going on here.

Click each picture twice to get a much closer look.


At times like these I start asking myself not where all the fish are but instead:

How do they all fit in?

You can see why I implore you all to stay as late as you can whenever possible.

Regular Rod

Walk on by...?

That might be OK for Dionne Warwick but you can miss out on some astonishing opportunites if you forget yourself and wander by water that at first glance would not be worth your effort.  In a healthy river there are very few places where there will be no fish.  Some tiny pockets will only hold small fish but it is a source of constant surprise just how often there will be exceptions to that "rule".  Yesterday I was a privileged guest on a section of my mother river a few miles upstream from my usual haunts.  It was a very stimulating and pleasant change.  The tuning in process naturally takes longer on an unfamiliar water.  The senses are heightened as it is now even more important to practice the three basic principles before I can become a resident and not merely a marauding visitor.

It worked.  It always does.  Mine host ensured I had free reign and generously let me fish as and where I pleased at the pace to suit myself.  The result was a delightful time.  Here is one shot of one of the many, many interesting spots that all held fish and rewarded a few extra moments of contemplation and observation with closer contemplation of the wild brown trout and wild rainbow trout that the Derbyshire Wye is justly celebrated for.  It would have been very easy to just walk on by so many of these places.  Frankly I believe most folk do on this section, as it is something of a military training assault course.  It was worth the perspiration!

Back on home water, here is a fish that I have seen many anglers wander past never even imagining that such a large specimen could be found happily holding a constant station, day-in-day-out, in such a shallow pocket of water.  Look closely.  Can you can see why this is such a prized position for the fish?





Regular Rod

Project Fish...

... or how to use up a lot of fishing time!

This season's Drake festivities, even though a little more perfunctory than is usual, still unveiled the whereabouts of some stunning fish.  Those of you who spent some formative years of your angling career fishing for the so-called "coarse" fishes (a silly English term referring to fishes without an adipose fin) may have found yourselves involved in "specimen" hunting.  It's a phase most of us have to go through when only a very large example of each specie is deemed worthy of our attention.  Eventually, many of us move on to simpler goals.  My goals these days are to fish as often as I may and enjoy whatever happens. 

HOWEVER...!

This year I espied some extraordinary grayling in the Derbyshire Wye.  Bigger than any I have caught in Derbyshire and nearly as big as "specimens" I caught as a younger man in North Yorkshire.  So maybe a little time will be expended, spent, invested, wasted... (Whatever!)  in pursuit of these splendid creatures.  I had a little try a few days ago and immediately caught some lovely grayling from the shoal headed up by the monsters I was after.  I failed with the bigger fish but had some exciting moments with the fine, yet smaller, fish that were in the sentry positions downstream of them. 

This one shot off down river as if it was starring in a bone fishing film!  On netting, it was clear that this was a lucky fish!  Can you see the scar on its side level with the pelvic fin?  That fish had escaped from the saw toothed bill of another imported alien that has no natural enemies within our shores and so reaches plague proportions quite easily and quickly...

Project fish?  Well I will have another try or two I'm sure, but without any extreme efforts.  I finished with ultra-cult a long time ago.  More frequent moments of Joy and Contemplation are my ambitions these days.


Regular Rod

Management

Here's a little patch of river Heaven.  The stretch here is mainly shaded.  Where the sun can consistently get to the bottom of the river and, where the water has enough briskness of flow, here we find the water crowfoot, or water buttercup, Ranunculus fluitans. See how it flourishes where the sun can get in and right next to it the shaded water has almost no sign of this brilliant plant.  Herein live freshwater shrimp, ephemerid nymphs, other invertebrates and, of course, trout! 

The fronds speed up the flow locally, like so many little hose pipe jets, which in turn keeps the gravel a perfect substrate for spawning trout, grayling and brook lampreys, by clearing it of silt.  On the wild trout fisheries, where no stocking of farm bred fish takes place, the river keepers concentrate on improving and maintaining water quality.  Part of that work consists in coppicing trees to get a mosaic of sunlight on the river bed so there are more places to suit this valuable water "weed" and so in turn create more places for invertebrates, fish and their eggs.  It's a wonderful chain that starts with sunlight and finishes with very happy anglers...


Regular Rod

Easy pools and hard ones

Both can get you swearing under your breath.  The easy pools get taken for granted and you snag up behind you on a grass seed head.  The hard ones, well they are just plain hard!

Here are two pools to consider...

This is an easy pool by an island where the river is turning sharp left as we face it.  There are some drag conditions to take into account but basically if you keep the back cast up high you can expect some success if you haven't frightened the fish.  But don't take places like this for granted or you will get caught up and the Recording Angel will be adding to the list...

Here's another on the same river...

This is hard.  Not so much a letter box more a keyhole but the fly must be placed under those white flower heads of the elder bush on the other bank because that's where the fish are in that run.  It's no good going upstream round the other side of the tree on your right here because you may as well have thrown yourself in for the way the fish would clear off!  The wind will of course be blasting downstream at you to add to your trials.  But don't swear too much.  Expect it to be hard and plan the cast accordingly.  Fitting the line through the keyhole up the middle of the river and with that slightly longer tippet on your leader the wind will turn it under the flower heads and you have a chance!  It matters not one jot whether the fish is a big or little one, catch here and you can be justly proud of yourself and if you do swear in amazement, the Recording Angel will probably join in with you and note down that you did b***dy well!

Regular Rod

How many hidy holes?

There are four here!

Click to enlarge the image

Three for the fish and one for me...


Regular Rod

James Ogden Day - Remembering a Genius

Today was James Ogden Day.  On June 5th 1865 he proved to the Duke of Rutland's Steward (Robert Nesfield) that his artificial floating flies would "kill during the Drake".  From then on the rule was made, for the first time anywhere in the world, that on the Haddon Estate single artificial floating fly only was to be used, making the very first dry fly only fishery. 

Ogden was a brilliant innovator and astute business man.  As well as creating the first flies designed specifically to float, he created the Invicta, introduced a creel strengthened so that a man could sit on it to fish and so keep low and out of sight from the fish, devised and sold folding landing nets that could not tangle and (my favourite) he introduced the idea of using a short fly rod, instead of the customary 11ft to 16ft rods that were normal for fly fishing in those days. 

Today I used one of his rods from 1880, it is 8ft long in built cane and is called a "Multum in Parvo" roughly meaning "much in little".  The first fish today was a nice little brown trout that Ogden would have been familiar with.  The second he would not have been familiar with.  It was a wild rainbow trout that had the 130 year old cane hooped over for a few hectic moments.

All in all, James Ogden Day turned out to be a cracking day for fly fishing and his old rod (and reel) were a joy to use.  (Well the rod was, the reel was terrible...)

Regular Rod

Postman

So many places are missed by anglers walking past them taking the view that they are unfishable.  Sometimes you have to spot the letter box so you can post your line through with a careful bit of casting.  Next time you see an "impossible" place, give it a moment or two of careful reconnaissance and thought.  See if you can spot a letter box that you might just fit your cast through.

Here's one from Monday's joyous day by the Derbyshire Wye.  The line needed to go under the branch at the top of the picture and over the stalks and stems coming up into the middle of the picture.  It was worth it.


Regular Rod

Colours

This picture is just a quick snap to illustrate the tell-tale mark of a true wild rainbow trout in the Derbyshire Wye.  It's that candle flame orange on the very top edge the dorsal fin (click the image and click again for a closer look).  Any rainbow trout in the Derbyshire Wye without this mark has a question mark over its origin...

This creature is a Yellow May Dun. A female, she has a drop of water at the tail end of her body because I hadn't the heart to let her stay stranded in the surface film after a rain drop had bombed her flat. She is drying off on my finger before getting on her way to take her chances. In forty two years of dry fly fishing I have never seen a fish eat one of these. Have any of you good folk ever seen fish eat a Yellow May Dun?

Regular Rod

"Fish where the fish are!"

On this theme, which really should become a natural part of any angler's strategy, at the risk of boring you with repetition here is another example of putting that principle to work.

Here is a lovely tangle made by the river keepers when they put faggot bundles into the left side of the river, planted fleur-de-lys (flag iris) to consolidate the bank and so made some extra habitat, with a good flow bringing a constant stream of food to the fish that decide to take up home within its secret intricacies.  The tiny fish can live securely in the little gaps between the twigs and branches in the faggots, whilst the bigger fish can hang out a little further (and so get the first pickings of the food) but instantly disappear under the faggot bundles at the first sign of danger from above.

So here is a great spot to "Fish where the fish are".  The faggots here are made of live willow and willow being so tenacious of life has made roots and sent out shoots afresh with new leaves.  Eventually this area will be canopied by overhanging willow fronds and so become even more attractive to the fish.

Attractive to the fish usually means a little bit harder casting and fishing for the dry fly angler, but what delightful rewards await the one who is prepared to risk all by sending the fly over to visit the home of Mr or Mrs Trout!


Not the biggest trout in the river but just look at its fantastic condition!  That constant food source, which can be partaken of with very little expended energy, has been well used and so may it continue.  River keepers eh?





Regular Rod

Detecting in the dark...

One advantage of living by the side of a river is that you can get out at all times of night and day to "see what is going on".  This evening is no exception.  The river is not alive with rising fish as it can so often be.  However, there were still plenty of rises to look at and to puzzle over as to what the fish were eating.  This is a useful exercise in that it helps you to understand what is happening on similar occasions when you are there with a fly rod in your hand.

I watched some rises very near to the bank I was on and first impressions were that there were at least four fish rising very close to each other.  This should make you ponder straight away.  Trout dislike each other and will only tolerate each other, when feeding, if there is a very large amount of easily consumed food around.  Might this be a pod of grayling, which are shoal fish and enjoy each other's company?  Well it is unlikely, as grayling usually rise from near the bottom of the river to the fly and then they go back down again, to rise again a few moments later if they are in a feeding mood. 

These rises were being made at a rate of about 15 to the minute.  That's a lot!  They could not be made by grayling.  The rises were different from the spinner rises in that the fish was hanging in the water at a steep angle that made the neb, when observed from downriver, appear like a triangle or wedge shape.  In this rather dark photograph (it is night time after all) you can see that there has already been one rise immediately in front of this second rise, where the camera has luckily caught the neb above the surface for a moment.

Now this seemingly crowded bit of water raised my curiosity so I sneaked up river until I was level with the rises.  What a surprise!  All the rises were being made by one trout!  It was not still for more than a second at any time.  Left, forward, right, drop back, forward, forward again, to the right, to the left, drop back, drop back some more, sip, sip, sip every time.  The trout made each rise from directly under the midge it was about to eat.  It spent its time just under the surface and tipped up at the angle you might just be able to make out in this even darker photograph. 

Could I detect it was eating midges from the rise forms?  Not really, it was a slight clue but could easily have been aphids, reed smuts, or some other fly.  No I only know it was eating midges because when I got really close it was possible to see the midges on the surface and watch them being sipped away by this very active wild rainbow trout.  But, next time I see rises like that, I will be trying an attempt at a fake midge and carefully checking just how many fish I am going to be trying to cast to.



Regular Rod

Rises to spinners...

You may recall last year, when this blog started, we discussed how to spot the rise forms of fish potentially feeding on spinners. 

Click and click again on the image for a closer look

Last night, as it started to go dark, I came upon a trout rising to spinners very assiduously and under a high bank near enough to attempt a photograph.  The image is noisy owing to the low light levels, but hopefully you can see the start of the elongated ring of the rise form, just made by the head and dorsal fin and shortly to be augmented by the mark made by the tail, that dark triangle just behind the rise form, breaking the surface as the trout levels itself a few inches down, in readiness for the next fly on the conveyor belt.

No I didn’t catch it.  I didn’t even fish for it.  Sometimes it seems wrong to intrude on such a much deserved meal.

Regular Rod

Prepare for later this season...

It may still seem a while away yet but before you know it high summer will be here.  The grass will be taller and seed heads will begin to appear, cow parsley will be in flower.  Then it will be time to watch out for another crop of terrestrial insects that have crash landings on the water.  The soldier beetles will be with us.  There is unlikely to be a furious flurry of activity with these in the way that trout behave when the Hawthorn flies are all around us (as they still are right now).  Instead the soldier beetle casualties are more likely to be quietly engulfed in the back eddies and the edges to slack water.  As such, the fake of the soldier beetle makes a great ambush fly, which you deploy whilst laid face down to carefully watch a big brown trout perambulating his bailiwick.  Every now and then up will tilt the trout to take a morsel.  You gauge where and when to place your fly and, as the trout comes round on his serene progress, your fake is too good to leave behind.  Up tilts the trout and the rest is down to you.

There is a circa two thousand year old fly pattern that makes an excellent fake of the soldier beetle.  It works as a caricature rather than an exact imitation but is seems to have all the stimuli necessary to convince the trout that it is indeed another of the nutritious beetles.

It is called the Red Hackle and it is a simple and fast fly to tie.  You can have a dozen ready in twenty minutes or less so put a little time aside and make sure you have a few in readiness for the return of the soldier beetles.

You need red knitting wool (I use scarlet wool), natural red cock hackles, black thread and some hooks about size 12 or 10.

Put the hook in the vice as shewn.  Run on a short bed of thread at the front of the hook

Tie in the cock hackle as shewn with six turns of thread.  Snip off the waste hackle stalk.

 

Teeze out a small ball of red wool from a strand of the knitting wool and dub this onto the thread in a long thin sausage of wool.

Wind the body tightly down to the bend of the hook.  If the amount of wool is guessed correctly it will all be used up when you reach the bend.  Let the thread dangle here under the weight of the bobbin holder.

Take the hackle point in the hackle pliers and wind four to six tight, touching turns up to the start of the body.  Then carry on winding down to the hook bend in open, spiralled ribbing turns.  Tie in the hackle with a couple of tight , touching turns and then rib the body with the tying thread and wind the thread quickly  through the front part of the hackle.  Make a bold head with your whip finish and varnish it well.  Use the waste hackle point to clear the varnish out of the hook eye whilst it is still wet.

Voila!  The Red Hackle.

You can use this fly on fast rapids too.  It shows up well and is another good "bring 'em up" fly.   This might possibly be because it looks a good mouthful and so worth the effort of rising?

Regular Rod

Tip from the Treatyse

Here is some of the oldest advice ever given in angling (click it twice to get it full size):

See that second tip?  "Also look that ye shadow not the water as much as ye may.  For it is that thing that will soon fraye the fish.  And if a fish be afraid he will not bite long after."

The first tip has the answer when you are on the west bank and the sun is setting behind you.  "or else behind a bush that the fish see you not..."

It is surprising what you can get away with if you take some simple precautions.  Here's a modern day version of following this medieval advice.  Sneaking in using the tree to shield the angler from view, then sliding down under the tree to make a completely undetected approach to the fish rising in the run below the (west) bank.




Regular Rod

Those three principles all over again...

A wonderful day in the sunshine watching Hawthorn flies in their courtship dances and also seeing the trout grabbing every one of them that ended up on the surface of the river in the unpredictable breezes.
You may recall the three principles that I gladly bang on about to anyone who might pay attention...
Well one example of putting this blessed trinity to work was as I passed through a little gate, it was possible to OBSERVE over on the other side of the river that the fish were hammering the Hawthorn flies.  I tried a cast or two.  Reaching the fish was no real problem but controlling the line was another matter entirely.
What to do?  Simply put I needed to FISH WHERE THE FISH ARE and so walked back upstream, crossed over by the bridge and then worked my way through the pathless swampy wood on the true left bank.  Arrived at the place it was then necessary to BE STEALTHY as there was no cover at all.  The place to be was sat cross legged on the exposed gravel bed.  Crawling to the spot was the only choice.  Undignified certainly but it was worth it.

The reward was almost an hour of exciting Sport with each hooked fish blasting away downstream in the fast currents, side strain persuading them into the slacker water in the edge followed by a gentle guiding into the welcoming meshes of the long handled landing net.

That evening my close pal, John, joined me.  He had a new rod.

"Aren't you going to take the plastic off the cork handle?"

"Only when I catch a fish on it..."

Hmm.... He had arrived quite late on.  There were fish still prepared to eat the Hawthorn flies but the daylight was now fading quickly.  After trying a few places with a Charles Cotton's Black Fly exactly like the one I'd been using all day, his rod was still not about to lose the plastic wrapping. Part of the problem was a lack of visibility on the darkened water.  A change of fly (to a Double Badger) and he quickly caught a very nice little wild rainbow trout.  The plastic could come off, later...

We made our way slowly upstream back to where he had parked his car.  On the way he had a few speculative casts whilst I went ahead a little to OBSERVE!  Lo and behold!  There were several rising fish in both sides of a line of flow.

"C'mon John!  Get up here!"

For John to FISH WHERE THE FISH ARE, he had to BE STEALTHY so he crawled into the vantage point and knelt where I suggested.  Two or three casts later...

"I think your fly's come off!"

"It never has.  Has it?"

"Aye it has."

"I never felt anything..."

"Never mind that!  Can you see all these flies around us?"

"Aye!  What are they?"

"Spinners!"

They were male blue winged olive spinners and the fish were eating their wives.

So, for the first time this season, a PPS was tied onto his tippet.  A few minutes later John was testing his new rod nicely with a very strong wild rainbow trout that certainly did its best to be elsewhere.  It looked brilliant in the last of the daylight and had the reddest stripe on each side and a big red patch on either "cheek".  I hope you can get some idea of how lovely this fish was from the hurriedly snapped photo.  We watched him swim back to where he came from then we shook hands and grinned at each other like a couple of daft kids...

It was a perfect end to a perfect day!





Regular Rod

Snags, structure, hidy holes...

... call them what you will, but pay attention to these bountiful places.  They are too good to miss!

Those of you British anglers, who may have spent some happy times coarse fishing before now, will probably be very familiar with the chub.  A beautiful creature, with a big, all enveloping mouth, that bites boldly but lives timidly.  Chub like to hide in snags.  Tree roots, tangled, flood-borne, woody debris, weedrafts snagged on bridge supports are all excellent places to find chub.  Show yourself to a chub though and he will just melt before your eyes.

Chub are not alone in liking their living quarters to be surrounded with snaggy branches and tree roots.  Carp too can be found near to, or within, the most tangled of hidy holes.

I understand that, in the USA, bass enjoy lurking in similar places.  The expert bass angler makes it a special skill to identify "structure", knowing that here is a place where bass can usually be found.

Wild trout, both wild brown trout and wild rainbow trout, like these snaggy places too.

  
Here is a little spot from yesterday's visit to the Derbyshire Wye and below is the delightful wild rainbow trout who lives there.

When catching a fish in such places, the technique can best be described as "hook and hold", with no line being given unless absolutely forced so to do. Those first thrashings can decide all. Hold on enough to guide the fish out of its fortress and you then have a fair chance of winning the argument.



Regular Rod