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

Easier than it looks...

Rushed out late this evening forgetting the camera so had to revert to the telephone, please forgive the poor quality of the photographs.  You might enjoy this peep at a very fish-filled spot.  Some of the places where the fish rise here are very difficult indeed to get the drift just right.  Others are much, much easier than they appear to be at first glance.

It is no exaggeration to say that there are hundreds of fish in the area covered by this snap.

Here is the same spot with just two places identified where good fish feed when there are flies on the water.  The X on the left is where fish take up position in a current that flows from the back of the picture, through the gap between the islands and towards us, where it joins the main river current that is flowing from left to right in these pictures.  The X on the right is a place where the fish also hold up under the overhanging vegetation in a current that flows more slowly than the flow right next to it between the fish and us.

Amazingly they are not hard places to present the fly into.  This was only discovered by ignoring what appeared to be great potential for drag whipping the fly out like a trick water skier going for speed across the water and simply having a try.  All that is needed is to throw a long leader abruptly up the gap between the islands so that it falls in a pile, rather than turning over nicely.  The fly drifts naturally for several seconds and the rising trout will eat it if the fly seems to be the same as the real flies it has already been snaffling.  To present to the fish at the right hand X all that is needed is the same overpunched out cast but this time cast to the right hand edge of the gap so the leader again falls in a similar pile and gives a similar several seconds drift before it is dragged away.

Here are the results.

Two strong Wild Brown Trout.  The first came from where the X is in the gap between the islands.  It was a real bruiser of a fish that fought very hard, taking the fight all round the pool.  It would have been lost if it had not been quickly bullied into the open water rather than trying to fight it in the gap between the islands amongst all the tree roots and other snags.

The second came from the overhung spot marked by the X on the right.  It was longer than the first trout but not as strong and seemed a bit on the slim side compared to its shorter but stronger rival.  They both succumbed to the PPS.  Both returned whence they came with no problems.

Ironically, some of the nearer places in this pool are much more difficult to fish than these two "X marks the spot" places...




Regular Rod

Intervention...again...

Rightly or wrongly your faithful correspondent has been interfering with Nature again.  The only defence is that the injury to this English fish is NOT natural.  The perpetrator was an alien species to these islands and just because this alien is feathered, very beautiful in appearance, can be watched with binoculars and ticked off in some birdspotting book, it is deemed acceptable for this native species to be injured in this way (on both sides of its body).

The hole where the hooked sawbill has dug right through the skin and flesh almost to the stomach cavity is particularly severe.  Nevertheless, the fish was feeding hard (it damn well needs to now), so was easily tricked by the PPS .  A good dribble of Nash Medicarp Ultra on both sides, making sure there was a particularly thick coating on the deep cut, and this wild brown trout with the "lucky" genes was soon on its way back to take its chances, which, hopefully, might have been improved after its encounter tonight with another predator, Homo sapiens sapiens (the "innocent" predator).

Medicarp Ultra isn't too expensive if you think you too might like to intervene...














Regular Rod

Swift flow the sands of time except in the hour of pain...

Last night it went cold and dark by 9 o'clock.  Sport was good but when the fly has finally become invisible, the dry fly angler has to return home, usually leaving a river populated by hordes of rising fish.

Henry and Regular Rod on our way home...

There are only 46 days left of the trout season in this part of the world.  The grayling will become more and more our regular quarry and evening rises will be but a memory for six long months.  We will just have to bear the pain of waiting.  So make the most of your chances now.


Regular Rod

Treachery

Here is a traitor!

I thought I had weeded out all the soft hooks from a bad batch I bought a decade ago.  I used to love these arrow pointed barbless hooks but now my confidence in them is at an all time low.  This one cost Henry and I an encounter with a magnificent grayling this evening.  Sturdy's Fancy was the right pattern, but I'd chosen the wrong hook.

Oh well, never mind!  A fresh fly on a stronger hook might get us one of the other handsome grayling Henry...

And it came to pass that is exactly what happened.  A splendid, if moist, evening with the grayling and some plump, but rapid, wild rainbow trout. 

Nowt as big as that first fish on the first cast that easily straightened out my bent little traitor though!

Regular Rod

Evening Mist - "A Bad Thing!" - Really?

How many of you feel your heart sinking when a mist descends over the river?

It is hardly a boost to one's confidence.  Nevertheless, mist descending is really just another set of conditions that you have to make a decision or two about.  Tonight the mist came down over the water and the first instinct is "Oh dear!  That will switch the fly activity off.  Maybe it is time to go home?"

The thing is though, Henry and your regular rod had only just emerged from a day indoors, processing films and photographs.  (Yes some of us still use film as well as megapixels.  That's another story for another time perhaps...)  Going back indoors was not really what we had in mind.  So...

The conditions meant the first decision was to persevere and do our best. 

Lo and Behold!  Some fly activity was still happening.  The hatching flies had more or less packed in for the night but the spinners were committed.  Their energy packets can't last indefinitely.  Mated females with fertilised eggs have got to complete their missions.  So at least some of the spinners out tonight had to come back to the river.  This they did in sufficient numbers to make some fish prepared to rise for them.  It was not a night of furious activity but there were enough fish interested in the dead and dying spinners to make fishing for them a worthwhile proposition.

The usual PPS was deployed and casting to the intermittently rising fish proved just effective enough to make the night a delight instead of a fruitless struggle.  The tally was a modest leash comprising: one very fine female grayling; one very strong two pound plus brown trout that fought a very hard fight until the big, long-handled, net was lifted; and finally a splendid wild rainbow trout that when carefully released, behind a stone in the edge that makes a pocket of slacker water giving released fish a sheltered spot to full recover in, simply flew, like an arrow, back whence it came and eschewing the sheltered water completely!!!

Hmm...  another McNab! 

The second decision was made. 

Pack up and go back home! 

It had been a splendid hour and anything else was going to be an anticlimax.  Go home happy, rather than go home in disgust at the mist. 

Surely a just reward for ignoring the doctrine and instead having a try?


Regular Rod

Observe and keep observing...

A fascinating evening after only being able to get out at 7.30 p.m.  The fish were eating olives and the Kite's Imperial was the fly of choice and it proved a good choice...

Until the rises changed to vigorous changes of direction when the trout (and grayling) showed the sides of their bodies as they moved rapidly to intercept sedge flies that were all over the river's surface.  Looking upriver one was treated to the sight of dozens of sideways on fish at their feasting.  A good hour with the NDS saw some brisk Sport. 

Then in the space of less than five minutes everything changed.  The fish were making those elongated rise forms as they broke the surface first with their noses, then their dorsal fins and then the top of their tail fins, which "always" indicates they are feeding on spinners.  The PPS was put to its usual task and yet more success followed.

So a splendid evening, but there was more to come.  Just as it was getting dark enough to force the polarised glasses off the nose and back into the bag safely in their case, the rises changed again! 

The fish were hanging at an angle and simply pushing themselves up with open mouths to engulf something.  Stop casting!  Look and look into the gloaming and see what is in the air over the water.  Caenis!  Aha!  Off with the PPS and on with a Double Badger.  An old worn out Double Badger if you please!  One was pulled from the hat band, tied on, anointed with floatant and sent on its way to the rather fat brown trout that it was just possible to discern whilst it made impressions of a whale engulfing herring, or anchovies.  Third cast and the worn out Double Badger was on the right space of the conveyor belt.  It was engulfed with the same confidence as the real clumps of tangled Caenis spinners and duns had been.

Tap!  Then all Hell broke loose as the brown trout decided to evacuate from the area.  The Vivarelli reel comes in handy at times like this, all the loose line was whizzed up and your faithful blogger rose to take some running exercise, accompanied by Henry, as we ran down river a little way to keep on terms with our precious quarry.  A little later we had the trout in the long handled landing net and on the unhooking mat brought for such pleasant exigencies.

It went back well, accompanied by whimperings from Henry because he still cannot understand why the fish are not in a neat pile on the bank, like pheasants are in winter, but instead are gently released and allowed to "escape"(?)

Keep your eyes open for those signs that things are changing and respond to the changes.  It makes for a great deal of satisfaction.  It also indicates that you are in tune with your surroundings.  You are attaining that elusive "resident" status.  You are reverting back to your natural state.  You are Homo sapiens sapiens the innocent predator and you belong right there on that river bank!



Regular Rod

Adapting to suit...

... conditions is pretty normal and done by most of us to some degree or other, if only when we swap flies for example.  It is all too easy though to turn up and because we fished a certain way only yesterday, or last week, or last month and we were successful that time, the temptation is to simply start as we did on the previous visit.  This can quickly fritter away what is left of the day if we persevere, for example, with a spinner pattern when the fish are eating sedgeflies, or vice versa.  Basing our choice of fly and tactic on the feel good factor remembered from our last visit is not as good as reverting back to basics on every trip and following those three principles all over again then, relying on our current observations, selecting a fly to at least make an attempt at "matching the hatch"!

The last week has seen quite a change on the waters round here.  Firstly there are a lot more grayling now getting into the late summer and autumn mood for rising to take food on the surface.  The dry fly angler is unlikely to miss this.  There is something pretty obvious when fish after fish coming to the fly turns out to be a grayling.

 

 The other difference, alluded to in the last post, is that spinners are putting in their welcome appearances a little earlier and they are finishing their appearances earlier too.  The fishing day is shorter not only because darkness is upon us earlier and watching the fly becomes more and more difficult as each day marches on, but also because the spinners are simply finishing their vital missions much earlier than they did a month ago, 9.00 p.m.-ish instead of 10 p.m.-ish if last night was anything to go by.

We have no choice but to start and finish earlier.  It is still very much worth it as the fish are now in the peak of condition and some of them are getting to be big enough to make the outcome of any battle doubtful until the net is raised!

This morning the dew was making pretty patterns on every spider's web, yet through the willowherb and meadowsweet the fish were rising steadily and ready to reward the angler who had adapted to the changes and was starting early. 

Set your alarm clocks but be ready to adapt...

Regular Rod

Change is in the air!

Summer is changing and the late fishing angler has already noticed "the nights are drawing in"!

The Mother river has been hard of late.  The only chance of Sport has been to either fish very early and very late, or, if you must fish in the daytime, to creep very carefully into awkward little places to trick a nice brown trout or two lurking under overhanging branches and foliage right under the bank.  The unusually high water and therefore stronger and more manifold mid-river currents have conspired to make casting into such hidy holes on the opposite banks a very hit and miss affair.  In effect we have had to concentrate on fish right under our noses at the nearside banks.  So short casting was the main tactic, just to be doing something in the daytime until the evenings.

Now it has changed.  The fly life is becoming busy in the daytime again and Sport is a lot easier to obtain.  After work, the angler nipping out for a couple of hours has found 8.30 pm was about the time the spinners would return and the fish lock onto them.  This weekend saw the change occur.  The spinners are coming back at least an hour sooner, in fact it is now probably a couple of hours in advance of what it was 10 days ago.  The downside of this is our Sport is finishing earlier too...

The other indicator of the march of time in the season is the increasing number of fine grayling prepared to rise from the very bottom of the river to take flies, both real and fake...

Last night on the Town water, the spinners and fish were already busy when Henry and I turned out to just grab an hour or so of the tuning in (or grounding the earth lead) that fishing can bestow on the lucky angler.

We were lucky last night with plenty of fine trout and grayling eating the spinners.  We were also lucky that we didn't miss the opportunity because, instead of finishing at 10.30 pm it was all over by 9.20!  Lesson learnt.  Your faithful blogger will be starting his evening forays a lot earlier and will soon simply be fishing right through the day and the hours of Sport on those days will be getting less and less spread out. 

There are only 61 days of trout season left!


Regular Rod



A Lucky Fish but an Ethical Quandary

This Wednesday it was after 8.30 pm when Henry and his faithful servant managed to get out, rushing, with little time, the little pocket camera was left behind in error.  Luckily the mobile 'phone was not forgotten.

Note the pan bottomed big landing net, another carry-over from coarse fishing

This brown trout was the second fish we caught.  The grayling prior to this was photographed so badly with the 'phone that it would be an insult to you all to put it on here.  This picture of the brownie is not much better either but worth a look all the same...

I'm sure it is a fish I caught a year ago at this same place.  It was in a bad way with a dirty great big hole just in front of its dorsal fin. At just under ten inches long it was a (lucky) victim of an assault by a heron.  Nevertheless it was feeding well on spinners or else it wouldn't have been caught.  Nature has endowed fish with the ability to recover from injury but it is by no means a foregone conclusion that recovery and survival is a certainty.  Here's where an ethical question rears its ugly head...

What to do with a naturally injured fish?

1 ~ Do we say to ourselves "Oh it is likely to suffer and die slowly so put it out of its misery" and then kill it cleanly?

2 ~ Or, do we simply release it to let Nature take its course, on the very noble principle of don't intervene?

3 ~ Or, do we intervene?  Do we try to give that fish a slightly better chance of full recovery by a little rapid, riverside, First Aid?

The answer to the first question, for me, has to be a resounding "No!" when fishing Catch & Release.  Even a bleeding fish gets released under the principle that it might make it if you let it go and we can be sure it won't make it if we hit it on the head!

But what about options 2 and 3?

Confession time, I'm too soft hearted to not intervene.  I'm one of the daft beggars that rescues flies from raindrop bombing, gets bitten and kicked when pulling a sheep out of a bog it has sunken into, puts food out for the birds, grows plants that butterflies can feed on.  I intervene.

There is a product, obtainable from coarse fishing shops, that carp anglers use to medicate wounds on the carp they capture.  It's called Medicarp Ultra and if applied to a wound on a fish it cures to make an antiseptic, protective film and speeds up the healing process.  It comes in a little bottle and you just drip a drop onto the wound and then carefully release the fish.

Maybe our lucky brownie would have recovered fully anyway, but now a good three inches longer than at our last meeting, I like to think that the intervention helped a little in the trout's efforts to regain lost energy and time spent in repairs rather than growth.

Is intervention a good thing?  Is it even acceptable?  Don't shoot me if I've got it wrong though...


Regular Rod

Deo Gratias...

One of the nastiest, stomach knotting feelings is when you lose a fly... IN A FISH!  (We all do it occasionally don't we?)  The discomfort comes from a pricked conscience.  Each of us knows without doubt that we have just done harm, the very last thing any true angler wants.

The obverse of this coin is when you catch a fish and on removing your fly you find there is another, which you remove and joyfully release the fish knowing it is going back better off than it was prior to your success just now.  The feeling is one of relief on those occasions when you look closely at the fly to see - Lo and Behold!  It is your fly that you lost in that fish on a previous occasion.

Here's what was found tonight in a rather large brown trout.  The one with no tippet attached and algae on the wings and tail is one your faithful blogger lost last week - with much chagrin!  Emotions were at the other end of the See-Saw this evening when, after releasing the now unencumbered fish, it was possible to examine and confirm that this was indeed the very same lost fly.  The guilt pangs are now well and truly reversed...Deo Gratias





Regular Rod

Blondes - preferred by gentlemen?

An evening of fun with a blonde is not a bad thing, usually.  If the blonde is a bit glittery, evening might be the only time that fun is to be had.  Here's one of my blondes.  As you can see she is a bit on the shiny side even though this snap was taken long after sunset.

It's a Hardy Phantom Hollokona of 8ft in length.  One of the most accurate casting rods you are ever likely to come across.  The rod builders, from the days when Hardy built their own rods at Alnwick in Northumberland, really knew their trade very well.  My only niggle is that it is too shiny and so I only use it for evening and night fishing.

Henry came along and we had a fine time on the river Lathkill, or Dakin, a little, limestone spring-fed tributary of my Mother river, the Derbyshire Wye.

Arrived at 19:00 the spinners were already busy so the PPS was put to good use again.

Some lovely Wild Rainbow Trout (WRT) were mixed in with the famous Wild Brown Trout of this gin clear river.  Both species were found in good numbers and in good condition.  It was even possible to get a snap of a fish being released, which until tonight I have signally failed so to do...

Here's a WRT on the wet meshes of the net and...

Here is the same fish on its way back to freedom, hurray!  (Forgive the quality it was getting a little dark by now.)

Several fine trout of both species succumbed to the charms of the PPS.  This one was so fine, to carry on would have been an anti-climax. Your faithful blogger was hungry and so was his faithful friend.  Going home, leaving a river full of rising fish is a good thing to do.  It was one of those nights when you wonder "How on Earth do all the fish fit in?" - a much nicer puzzle than wondering "Where have all the fish got to?"

If you think your river is short of fish you could do a lot worse than to start fishing in the evening and if your rod is a bit too blonde or shiny for best effect in the daylight it won't matter in the fading light as there will be no sun to glint on it.

Instead of packing up as the sun sinks, stay out there whilst the fish reveal themselves to you and, instead of dinner on your return home, make do with supper!



Regular Rod