A Unique Sight in the UK...

...Wild Rainbow Trout spawning in the Derbyshire Wye.

Yesterday I scared them off with my clumsy approach.

Today the sun was in my favour and I hid behind a tree...

Click the pictures for a closer look.  Forgive the quality I only had the pocket camera handy.

Regular Rod

Split!

Here's another Crack Willow (Salix fragilis) that suffered in the recent storms.  It's been there for about 400 years.  It has survived at least 400 fierce storms before, but this winter they have been extraordinary in their strength.  So here is what remains of the last willow on the right bank of the Derbyshire Wye.  I think there is a chance that it may be left this year to see how it might work some magic in the river bed.  It isn't dead yet so fresh shoots are likely to grow and it could even change the shape and nature of the Junction Pool just below it.

I love willows.  In Great Britain only Oaks support more species than the willow.  Willows are "givers".





RR

Preparation...

Walked over the hill with Henry to visit the Lathkill and see how things are coming on for All Fool's Day.  It was a delightful 4 miles or so with only a short section on tarmac. 

Henry of course was as investigative as ever and at each field entrance along the lanes the routine was a quick dash in, nose down, stop and sit at the signal from the whistle and then a scurry back to heel for all of five or six seconds!  My word, tractor tyres seem to be getting very wide these days, even up here in the Peak District.

"What's all this mess?" you might be wondering?  It's not a mess it's work in progress...  (You can't make omelettes without breaking eggs!)

The fishing hut is in the process of being given a new lease of life by Warren and Jan.  Fresh roof, old shutters removed, all much brighter.  There is something rather secure and comforting in being dry inside on a rainy day, watching the river and sky whilst listening to the rain pattering on a corrugated roof.  Pleasures to look forward to but hopefully not too many times this season.  Sunshine will also be welcome.

The hut undergoing some close season "Preparation".  Do you notice something else in this picture? 

Click for a closer look...


What about the clarity of that water?

Yes even the river itself seems to have been in "Preparation" for the new season.  It is as clear as gin...



Regular Rod

Amazing New World Order addendum...

Some of you will already be aware that your faithful blogger is working on a series of photographs about Derbyshire's river Wye.  These are being made with a variety of cameras using film rather than megapixels.  By the confluence of the Wye with the Derwent there is an ancient willow, the last on the true right bank before the Wye ends and the Derwent takes over.  This  once fine tree has been split right down to the soil line by this month's storms. 

This dramatically weather-hewn willow caught the eye so comprehensively that all the sheets of film were quickly used up in a frenzy of setting up the camera and tripod making an exposure then moving the whole lot to another location near this astonishing sight and another and another and so on and then, as if by magic, all the film was gone. 

Henry was relieved as all was repacked away and we could move on.  Naturally we had to go and have a little look down at the Derwent.  Here was what must be destined to be a popular pool for the lucky new members of the Rowsley section of the Peacock Fly Fishing Club, the length immediately down river of the Junction Pool.  The ground had some very healthy looking clumps of snowdrops dotted about it.  River silts from the regular floods must be exactly what snowdrops like because these specimens were perfect in every respect and looked simply lovely.

You will all know the old saying, "The things you see when you don't have your gun!"

Oh why had all the film gone?  Why not even one sheet left (preferably colour)?  Never mind.  The little Olympus was in the trouser pocket and a couple of digital snaps were made.  Here's one of them.

Snowdrops 'neath the Junction Pool

Then on a piece of weathered wood what was that crawling along?  By Gum!  A February Red making the most of the sunshine after all the rain we have had in recent weeks.  A quick snap and here it is.

February Red

Then it flew up and over the water, whereupon a gust of wind knocked it to the surface.  It righted itself and seemed ready to take to the air once more then - BAM!  A brown trout made a noisy meal of it. 

Guess who has made a note of its whereabouts... 

Maybe trout and blogger will get acquainted some time early in the season? 

I'd say there was a very good chance, if some tardy February Reds are still around come All Fool's Day.




Regular Rod

Amazing New World Order!

You will have noticed that this is not a commercialised blog.  That is so that if anything is recommended on here, you can be sure there is no ulterior motive and that what is being recommended has, in your blogger’s opinion, great merit.  This (rather long) post is all about one such thing, a new fly fishing club with astonishingly good fishing for its lucky new members.

 

Not so very long ago it was just about impossible for the ordinary angler to gain access to some of the World’s finest dry fly fishing.  There was, however, one little chink of encouraging light in the darkness of despair at ever being allowed on such hallowed waters.  This was the day ticket water on the Haddon Estate’s length of the Derbyshire Wye, the famous “Peacock Water” so named because the Peacock Hotel at Rowsley was where we went to buy our tickets.  It is where anglers still congregate, where visitors can still have a day ticket to treat themselves to what is usually a special day after the wild brown trout and grayling, with the added bonus of the Wye’s wild rainbow trout, this being the only river in England with a self-sustaining head of rainbow trout whose first encounter with Homo sapiens sapiens is when they meet a lucky angler!

 

A Day Ticket Angler Stoops Low to Net a Grayling Watched by A Contented Looking Cow - circa 1975

In 1969 your faithful correspondent fished the “Peacock Water” on a day ticket for the first time and soon after became a regular rod.  The Derbyshire Wye was once more the Mother river to yet another of her keen tyros.  She taught this one everything he now thinks he knows about dry fly fishing, lessons learnt that have been applied with not a little success on waters North, South, East and West, near and far.

 

A Secretive Little Corner On the Lower Lathkill

Over time, as spending power increased and the distance of my name from the top of the waiting list shortened, it became possible to join the syndicate to fish an additional river, a tributary of the Wye.  This was the Lathkill, made famous by Charles Cotton in the fifth edition of the Complete Angler, when he described the waters as the clearest he had ever seen and that the trouts were said to be “the reddest in all England”.  The Lathkill, for observant and thinking anglers, imposes more advanced lessons on the subjects of concealment from the fish and of fly presentation.  Clumsiness on here is not quickly forgiven by the fish.

 

Looking down towards a short piece of the Bradford known as "The Coach Road"

There was another syndicate further up the catchment on the little river Bradford, which is a miniature version of the Lathkill and tributary to it.  Here there are even more of those amazing red coloured wild brown trout.  The red pigmentation is unique for this gene pool .  If you painted a picture of one accurately folks would think you insane.  Here the fishing was again a test of stealth but somehow the Sport was a little easier.  Visits to the Bradford for your blogger were only made as a privileged guest and nicely added to the variety which is supposed to be the spice of life.

 

When you fish the Derwent do make sure you miss nothing that looks like this!

It was also as an occasional and very privileged guest, of the owner, that the delights of the Haddon Estate’s four miles of the Derbyshire Derwent were sampled.  These delights are different from those of the Wye and her tributaries, in that wading is the order of the day here.  The banks of the Derwent are steep and high, typical of a spate river that is mainly rain-fed, so it is on with the waders and in you go.  Here the wet fly is permitted as well as the dry fly, which makes it a much desired water by anglers who like to practise the submerged and semi-submerged disciplines in the art of fly fishing.  There is something to suit everyone.  Access to these waters was exclusively available only to members of a club, which leased the waters from the Estate.  The quality of the fishing here meant that membership was keenly sought no matter the cost or the several years in Limbo with your name on the lengthy list of other anglers’ names all waiting for dead men’s shoes.  If your name came up you had to be ready with a hefty, non-returnable, joining fee plus your subscription money for your first year.

True to the famous quote from Heraclitus, an Ancient Greek philosopher, “Change is the only constant in life”, things have changed and changed for the better as far as we ordinary anglers are concerned.

 

 
 



The "Junction Pool" - Coming in from the left is the Derbyshire Wye to join the Derwent near Rowsley

The Haddon Estate has brought its four miles or so of the Derbyshire Derwent back in-hand.  These are now added to the eight miles of the Derbyshire Wye, two miles plus of the Lathkill and all of the river Bradford under the gentle management of the fisheries department of the Estate.  In recent years, as well as fantastic fishing, thanks to its husbandry policy of habitat creation, restoration, and preservation, it has also meant more and easier access for anglers to the Estate’s excellent fishing via membership of the Peacock Fly Fishing Club based at the Peacock Hotel  in Rowsley.  Now, with the addition of the Derwent fishing, the club is further enhanced with the Rowsley Fly Fishing section.  Subscriptions for the various memberships available are very competitive and there is no joining fee!   Waters, which when your faithful blogger started fly fishing were exclusively available to the wealthy and well connected, are now available to all of us to enjoy simply by joining this new club.  You can get all the details, if you fancy a rod here, by contacting the Peacock at Rowsley.  www.thepeacockatrowsley.com  or call 01629 733518.




The Record Book in the Lounge at the Peacock the "Finest Fishing Hut that Ever There Was!"

 

Yes it’s an Amazing New World Order, but one thing hasn’t changed... 

 

You can still buy a day ticket from the Peacock Hotel and fish the Derbyshire Wye!

 

 

Regular Rod

The Best Badger Capes I have seen...

....in the last twenty years.  I fact I think they might be the best I've seen ever!

From left to right, Grade One, Grade Two, Grade Three!

Thank Heavens that the British Fly Fair International event has at last reverted to the close season.  Many of us have missed these excellent occasions recently because they were during one of the nicest parts of the Trout Season.  Fishing takes priority over shows for your faithful blogger and dry fly fishing takes priority over just about anything so the shows were a long way off the agenda.  Now we are back to the happy state of being able to engage in retail therapy to keep us from depression as we wait for the trout season to start again.  Thanks to "being there" today a fantastic opportunity was not missed...

Six or seven years ago at the Game Fair, your correspondent was engaged in an educational conversation with Christina Tooley of Chevron Hackles.  She explained that she was engaged in a programme of breeding cockerels with badger marked capes.  She had some success but at that time was stuck in the paradox of what to do with the best birds.  Kill them and sell their skins?  Or keep them in the programme to benefit from the input of their genes?  She chose wisely if the experience today was anything to go by.

Imagine the disappointment earlier today when schlepping around the show, searching every sales point for good quality badger cock capes, but finding nothing anywhere near what was desired.  It looked like it was going to be another failed attempt to find these very important capes.  Imagine the slight lift in optimism on arriving at, then scanning the Chevron Hackles stand and spying what looked like a properly marked badger cock cape up on the rack.  Consider the further elevation in spirits when realising that there were actually 10 or more of these capes on the rack...

Trying to look calm and unflustered the whole rack was taken down and one-by-one, each cape was carefully removed from its clip-lock bag, examined carefully, returned to the bag and either returned to the rack or retained in the grip of the third and fourth fingers of the right hand whilst the inspection continued.

"You've cracked it!  You've definitely cracked it!  These are perfect!  I'll have these three please..."

The rest were returned to the display for the next lucky fly tier to find.  Frankly. if the money was available, none would have gone back on display.  They are all that good!

Normally I wouldn't recommend buying capes unseen and unexamined, but if you cannot get to the BFFI Fly Fair tomorrow, (Sunday 9th February) http://www.bffi.co.uk/ then you could do a lot worse than to contact Christina via chevronhackles@yahoo.co.uk and ask her to supply you with badger cock capes like the ones bought today by Regular Rod...


Regular Rod

Our last day of the ....

... shooting season. 

Whilst the river is never long out of my mind and Henry and I walk by it on most days for some of its length, our Saturdays over winter have been spent picking up at a couple of shoots.  This Saturday just gone was our last day until next season.  No doubt Henry and your faithful blogger will be spending more time near the water from now on and he will have to be very patient again whilst tripod and camera are fiddled with for hours on end.

Here he is on the last day with a hen pheasant that reminded me more of a bumble bee than a bird.  It was so small, it was a wonder the gun managed to hit it!

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible when a return to matters riverine will be duly effected...





Regular Rod

Please Help This Project...

Here is a link to a Kickstarter Project that the world needs not just the UK.  The most amazing wildlife has been filmed all over the world and yet here in the UK we have species that have hardly ever been filmed and some that have never been filmed.  Why?  Well, simply put, they are out of sight and therefore out of mind.  And why is that?  It's because they are FISH.

Remember some of my feeble attempts to video fish in their habitat with a hand-held, waterproof, point and shoot camera set on video?

and

Well Jack Perks is a real master at underwater filming of fish in their natural habitat (not tanks) and you can rely on him to make a perfect job.  His project has the potential to do a great deal of good.  Especially when we try to persuade those who rule over us to consider the needs of fish when making decisions about weirs, hydro-power, sewage treatment, abstraction, land use, pollution, flood "prevention" et al.  It doesn't cost a lot to make this project happen.  Please have a look and pledge what you can.  Every contribution helps and yours might be the very one that triggered the project's coming to life.

Thank you.

RR

Rain and more Rain, the Lifeblood of the Countryside.

Do you like to see the winterbournes running and all the springs welling up to fill the rivers, level off the obstructions and make it a little easier for the fish to run up stream? 

So do I.  Springs, in particular, can be so beautiful.

Click the Pic for a closer look

Here's one by the side of the Derbyshire Wye.  It even has its own miniature world of ferns, ivy leaves and mosses supported by the bounteous gushing that disappears again under the ground to pour out into the river proper a few yards away.

What's this got to do with Dry Fly Fishing? 

To me? 

Everything...




Regular Rod

Season's Greetings

From Regular Rod (it's a snap of Bakewell by the Derbyshire Wye)

and from Henry (he wears his hair shorter nowadays...)

 

 

 

Regular Rod

Pop Up?

We had some gales a few weeks ago.  Several trees were blown down.  I wish they were all those dreadful aliens, the sycamores!  No, instead native willows have been the "victims".

Do you remember this picture?

Black Barn Weir Pool

See the big willow on the left?  That was a favourite place for me to sit cross legged on the willow's roots and side-cast up to the fish on station in the various feed lanes below the weir's lasher.  It was low down and it was easy to be inconspicuous down there below the sky line.




Enough space to sit cross-legged

Sitting cross-legged and using the waterproof
trousers as an unhooking mat

Click the pictures for a closer look...

Now look what has happened.  The willow was blown down.  Jan managed to get some of it to pop up again by sawing off lengths of trunk until the weight of the root ball was sufficient to drag what's left of the willow back to an upright position.

Instead of a nice little hidey-hole to sit in, the roots are now a pulpit!  It will be tricky to fish there and not be noticed.

It's not all gloom and doom though.  Jan has saved the tree from total extinction and the trunk will make a splendid pollard in a few months and eventually it will boast a fine Afro-hairstyle like a massive pompom on a stick.  The flies will still land on its leaves to rest and change their skins.  The wren will still creep around those leaves grabbing some of those flies.  A fish may even take up residence under the overhang made by the now airborne roots...

This isn't the first tree to be salvaged by the keepers in making it...  Pop Up!





Regular Rod

Different but the same...

My mother river, the Derbyshire Wye, which taught me so much about dry fly fishing, is said to be only 15 miles long.  In that 15 miles it changes from a moorland trickle of surface water, constantly dripping out of the blackest cauldron of peat you could imagine, to a splendid, limestone, spring-fed river full of life and beauty.  I usually fish along the last few miles, where the land is fat and the river is a peaceful thing, meandering through the almost level pastureland between Bakewell and Great Rowsley.  A few miles upriver the scene is quite different.  The surroundings are steep sided "Dales".  On several occasions I have had the privilege of fishing up here as a very honoured guest and it is a delightful place to be.  There is a footpath open to the public alongside its true left bank and from time to time, in winter, I like to wander along here with a camera.  Last week, hoping to aid recovery following some minor surgery, I went on such a walk and fell in love with this piece of large woody debris.  A photograph simply had to be made in homage to the power of the river and this now dead, but still useful, tree.

The Derbyshire Wye in Miller's Dale

What do you reckon to it?


RR

How to Whip Finish Your Flies

How to never lose your whip finish tools?  Keep them attached to your hands!  That way you can always find them.

 1) Hold the thread downwards in tension with your left hand (opposite if you are a southpaw)
 2) Place your first two fingers of your other hand onto the tensioned thread, backs of the fingers to you
 3) Lift the thread in the left hand, still in tension, up level to the fly, turn the right hand so the underside of the fingers face you
 4) Keep the thread in tension with the left hand holding the thread in line with the hook shank, this makes a kind of inverted figure four "4"
 5) Use the fingers of the right hand to turn the thread over the hook shank behind the eye and over the thread alongside the hook shank
 6) Repeat for as many turns as you require
 7) Trap the thread against the hook shank with the left first finger
 8) Remove your right fingers from the loop
 9) Take a needle and hold the loop in tension with the needle
10) Draw the thread tight slipping out the needle as the thread pulls tight, cut off the spare thread and Voila! 

...the whip finish

Hand of Man or Hand of God?

You will no doubt recall that your faithful blogger has been know to interfere with Nature sometimes...  You might like to consider two examples of locally changing the way the water works in a river.

The first came about when the waders had been donned after the season to clear some rubbish from the river.  Discarded plastic bags are an abomination and so it was decided to get in and get them out.  The opportunity to try something to augment the effect of a little peninsula was just too tempting.  Twenty minutes of picking up stones and placing them in a line resulted in a submerged cobble croy. about nine inches high and about four feet long.  The croy was angled to point diagonally up river and even in low water conditions it could be seen that it had an immediate effect.  There was a nice crease in the current running downstream for quite a few yards from the croy.  This also created a longer eddy than was previously formed by the little peninsula alone.  The hope was that this would increase the fish holding properties just here, especially in high water.

The pink line is where the stone croy lies under the water.

Here you can see the hump in the water cause by the croy and the crease line between the main flow and the eddy at our feet

Well it seems to have worked quite well.   This video below shows you how it is working in high water.  The leaves drifting on the surface let you see the upriver direction of the eddy between this bank and the main current.  Yes it is interference and it was done for selfish reasons, to persuade more fish to take up station here.  Hopefully you will not think ill of your correspondent.  It was a well intended act and if it spoils anything, it can be shifted...

How about when God locally changes the way the water is working?

We had some storms recently and this big Weeping Willow was pruned somewhat as you can see by the below picture...

Down river the, rather large, bough came to rest at the tail of a pool below a large island.  I hope it stays there!  Just look at how it is already causing the flow to scour away at the gravel. 

The river bed rises here a little and might be just what the bigger female trout may want for a new place to make redds and wait for husbands around Christmas time. 

The danger trout face when on the redds comes from piscivorous birds.  On some redds they are easy prey, with nowhere to escape to nearby.  Those trailing branches and fronds of willow are perfectly placed nearby to the newly cleaned gravel for just such emergency escape routes.

So here we have a couple of local changes to the river, its flow and its bed.  Of the two I have a strong feeling that this one made by God will be much more productive and longer lasting... 


That is unless someone interferes and pulls out the willow bough!


Regular Rod

Why join the Wild Trout Trust?

It's not a perfect organisation but, in the UK, the Wild Trout Trust takes some beating for getting the most out of your donations and membership subscriptions. 




This video gives one answer to the original question...

http://vimeo.com/78362358#at=0

Enjoy more at the website http://www.wildtrout.org/

Regular Rod

Vertigo!

An early morning stroll along the local trail (a disused railway line now known as the Monsal Trail) with the camera and tripod led to this view of the Derbyshire Wye from one of the viaducts at Miller's Dale. 

Fish were visible to the naked eye, but with an exposure time of more than two minutes all moving things, like traffic on the road, either disappear or, like the water surface, become smoothened out.




Regular Rod

Ignoring the Trout?

That's what your faithful blogger will be doing until next April.  At least as far as trying to catch them that is.  Grayling in Autumn are the main quarry for a traditionalist like yours truly.  The hen brown trout are nearly all mottled now, a sure sign they are getting into spawning condition for the few weeks around Christmas Day.  The rainbows are in their usual great condition, but... the grayling are in such fine fettle and this IS the nicest time of the year to fish for them.  So... 

A quick check of the fly box and whoa there! The Sturdy's Fancies were in short supply.  There were more in the hat band than in the box!  Ten minutes work and a trio of reinforcements were in readiness.  Here they are...

Matching the hatch is always best but this fly matches so many little midges, smuts, aphids and other micro-species that it sometimes stays on the tippet all day long with no fall-off of Sport.  It is highly commended to all you Autumn Grayling fans.


Regular Rod

Guess!

Guess where I was taken fishing today!

Not a boast, please be assured, but today was very special and even in the rain it was a delightful chance to celebrate our Noble Sport in the very cradle of fly fishing.  "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods!" Well that commandment was broken today and hopefully the Recording Angel is perhaps a retired fisher who may understand and not mark my Soul down too harshly.

If you are coming to England at all and you love fly fishing...  Well let's simply say "You owe it to yourself!"  Email me if you would like to fish (and take luncheon) in the footsteps of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton.  I will let you have all the necessary contact details.  Every fly angler should fish this special place of pilgrimage at least once in their lives and catch the direct descendants of Izaak's and Charles' trout and grayling.



Regular Rod

A Sure Sign of Autumn Fast Approaching

Your faithful blogger loves misty mornings by the river.  Perhaps because the deeper, sub-conscious mind associates them with joyous times as a boy, Coarse fishing, usually for roach, when the float could trot quite out of sight in the enveloping fogs.

This is not a photograph of some carelessly discarded nylon.  It is one of the amazing threads of silk made by the spiders in the night.  This one spanning well over six feet.  With a coating of misty dew it makes a fine indicator of how the weather is now distinctly Autumnal. 

No river roach for me these days, too far away.

Never mind though, today I am surrounded by rivers that teem with grayling...

How blessed we are to be anglers!




Regular Rod

Buxton

The good folk of Buxton are probably oblivious of the way they treat their river, MY river!

 

 

Here for a short length the Derbyshire Wye comes out of a concrete and stone walled tunnel and a few trout manage to eke out a living here below these twenty feet high walls. Ten yards down from the discarded supermarket trolley it is put into another concrete tunnel then, when it comes back out into the light, it is part of a sewage plant and from there on for half a mile it runs in a concrete channel with no life in it.

It is, however, a miraculous river as, at the end of the concrete channel, there is gravel and Ranunculus fluitans, which with the additional water from the many limestone springs in its bed brings it back to life for the rest of its journey to the confluence with the Derwent at Great Rowsley 15 miles from the source.



Regular Rod