Obligations...

If a person, or a club, or a syndicate, has or obtains fishing rights, does this simply mean that the water is to be policed to keep it from being fished by unauthorised folk?  Or are there responsibilities and duties that come with the privilege of "ownership"?  Unless there are stipulations in the deeds or in the lease, there is next to nothing forcing the lucky possessors of the fishing rights to do the right thing by the water and its inhabitants.  Confront a club committee with the idea that they should be taking steps to ensure professional keepering of their waters and you will usually be told that the members would never countenance the necessary increase in fees to pay for such services.  This is surely because anglers, certainly in the UK, have become used to paying very little for the right to fish.  To make any change, which would lead to their rivers being looked after in the way they (the rivers) deserve, first needs a general change of mind and attitude towards the cost of fishing. 

Will this ever happen in my lifetime?  Maybe it will in one or two exceptional places...

While I'm waiting I think I'll just make sure I patronise only those places where my money goes into the upkeep of the waters by professional, dedicated, river keepers.  An amateur cop in the form of a bailiff is NOT taking on the real obligations implied with ownership and leasehold of fishing rights.

What do you think?  Is this how to make sure waters are managed in as sustainable a manner as possible?  Is keepering nothing but a relic of feudal times?  How can our rivers all be made as they should be if not by full-time, dedicated, professional keepering?




Regular Rod

Simple Fixes

Here's a couple of situations of which similar ones you will very likely come across whilst dry fly fishing.

The first one is DRAG!

Here is about the most simple example and the fix is also simple.  Fancy casting is not needed when all there is to consider is one very strong and fast current under your bank and next to a weaker and slower current further across.  The pictures show it better than I can write it:

As usual the "X" marks the spot where the fish are.

The remedy was very simple.  All that was needed was an extra long tippet on the end of the leader to make the distance between the fly and the fly line just over 6 yards.  Make the cast to land well upstream and to make sure the leader fails to turn over put a little bit too much force in the forward cast.  The fly lands over in front of the fish and the leader lands in a rough pile, upstream, partly in the stronger current and partly in the weaker current.  This gives you a few extra drag-free moments of your fly drifting dead stick over the trout.  Usually the trout will eat the fly and then your sweeping strike takes up all the slack line and sets the hook!

The second little puzzle was about obstructions...  Again it was very easy to fix.

In the past it was normal to creep up to this run and, while almost laying down, cast across to the fish rising in that line of bubbles in the feed lane.  This winter we had some extra powerful storms that left trees and bits of trees in the river.  One of these has ended up right between us and the fish, lots of twigs and small branches waiting to claw our line out of the air and break our hearts in the process.

How to fix it?  Break the, usually desirable, habit of sitting or kneeling or laying down to cast.  Move a few yards down stream and this time stand(!) to cast, at an angle, a little further up than before and so reach the fish.  It is possible to get away with standing in this instance by virtue of being further away from the fish and also by hiding behind the leaves of the alder growing conveniently just where we can get a clear cast to our chosen quarry.

It was a hot sunny day yesterday afternoon and rising fish were at a premium.  Plenty there but they needed finding and opportunities like these two just couldn't be wasted.  Certainly not with a task master like Henry, grumbling whenever there seems to be nothing happening.  He likes action and lots of it!





Regular Rod

Happy Fourth of July

... to all of you in the USA.  Have a great time, especially if you are going fishing!

Regular Rod

A Wet Fly Interlude...

Right up to the last minute this year, it was doubtful whether your faithful blogger was going to be able to again join Dave Wallace's party on it's annual visit to the Dee in Aberdeenshire.  After the best part of a week in hospital with a tube in the left arm and some dedicated nursing there was just a week to try and recover enough to withstand the rigours of flinging a big wet fly about, all day every day for a week.  The snag was it all depended on the results of some final tests.  Fortunately the all clear was given with the doctor's proviso not to overdo things and to rest every hour or so for a while.

It turns out that the Dee, this year, is proving hard but ignorance is bliss and your correspondent simply assumed it is always difficult to find a salmon prepared to take your fly.  Anyway luck favours the lucky and now the ambition to catch a salmon on a double handed rod with a self-tied fly (a Tosh on a size 12 low water debarbed double) has definitely been achieved. 

This is not a sea trout!

Now it is time to get back to some dry fly fishing with little flies on a little river and to look forward to next year's wet fly trip to the Dee...





Regular Rod

16th June 2014

My paternal Grandad took me fishing for the first time on 16th June 1956.  He was a traditional Sheffield style angler and that is how he taught me to fish.  A veteran from the Royal Flying Corps in WWI, he's long gone now but I'll never forget him, just as long as I can manage to commemorate this anniversary with a few hours by a quiet lake, bait being bread flake alternated with crust and, to finish the day, some worms...

Alisdair is a good friend.  He knows full well how important this ceremonial trip is to me.  He kindly took care of the permission and the transport to this private estate lake in Derbyshire.  Here he is with a nice Rudd heaving away at his 1970s ABU rod and reel.  He chose to fish in 1970s mode.  I used everything from the 1950s.  Glass for Alisdair, hollow built cane for me.  We began a few minutes after four o'clock this morning and at half past seven we were done for the day.  Alisdair to get to work.  Your faithful blogger to continue his slow convalescence at home.


All I wanted was a little Perch and maybe a little Rudd.  Instead I was treated to several hard charging Tench, plenty of Rudd, most of which needed the landing net and to finish the morning's pleasures a load of Perch on worms presented literally just under the rod top.

One of the "hard charging" Tench.  Grandad used to wax lyrical about the ruby eye of the Tench...

If okay by Wednesday, yours truly will be packing the salmon fly gear for the annual visit to the Dee in Aberdeenshire.  If not then someone else will have to take my place this year whilst I continue my enforced inactivity at home.

Regular Rod

Reasons to be cheerful...

Do you ever have one of those days when you are simply very happy?  Euphoric? When you have that "It feels good to be alive!" feeling? 

Yesterday was a day like that for your faithful correspondent.

Out with the dog, by the water, the Drake in full swing, the river alive, the fish to be seen feeding everywhere, the sun shining in between summer showers, flies in abundance, wild trout in abundance, wild flowers in abundance, it was simply perfect and after several days of being forcibly held from it, being there was extra special.

Some nice trout were caught and gently returned.  Here are some samples:

There was more to it than that though.  There were many other lovely things making the day so enjoyable.  The total was greater than the sum of the parts.  Certainly these were among the parts in this happy calculation:

These are the flowers of Sweet Rocket (Hesperis matronalis).  As you can see they come in the regular mauve-ish pink and also in the less common white. 

There were many, many reasons to be cheerful yesterday, certainly one of them is impossible to show you...  The flowers of Sweet Rocket make a most exquisite scent and on a humid afternoon the air is heavy with it.  That smell, if not the trigger for the feelings of euphoria, was certainly an all pervading component in "the sum of the parts".

Falling asleep that night, the last thing passing through the mind on its way to sleep was not dancing Mayfly Spinners, nor was it rising trout, nor curved and creaking cane.  In fact it was not a vision at all.  No, it was the heavy scent of Sweet Rocket and I recommend a good sniff at it whenever you get chance!




Regular Rod

"Natural" Selection...

Mayfly time, on a dry fly only water, is very important to the angler who would like to try for one of the really big trout.  Even if the quest is unsuccessful, there is still a great deal of fact to find out about the way things are going in the river.  Of course you could simply ask the Environment Agency to come and find out by electro-fishing the water, but that is a nasty shortcut and I believe is not altogether safe for the fish.  Anyway it is much more exciting to find out for yourself with nothing more than the fair means permitted and at your disposal on the fishery.

Your faithful blogger's Mother river is the Derbyshire Wye, particularly in its lower reaches.  The rules have always been very simple: no wading and dry fly only.  In 2004 the management policy of the river was changed and changed for the better as events since have proven.  Stocking with farmed fish ceased and another rule was added to the other two - Catch and Release!  The view being that at least for some years it is best if all fish were returned so that the larger fish, which were traditionally killed for the table, would get chance to pass on their genes by being allowed to breed.

The effect was almost immediate, certainly by the end of the second season there were many more trout and grayling in the river than had previously been the case and... there was a greater variety of sizes!

Now, ten years on, it would appear that the size of the fish at the top of the food chain is getting bigger, much, much bigger...

Arrived at the water and seeing a rise to a Drake (traditional Derbyshire speak for the sub imago of the mayfly Ephemera danica, sometimes the less common Ephemera vulgata) and having already tied on an EBM a cast was made. 

A mistake and a thoughtless one too!  The poor little trout was not much more than 5 or 6 times longer than the fly...

An immediate decision was made to leave all trout alone until it was certain that the cast was being made to those of good size, ten inches at least.  This meant that the tactic had to be to search out the bigger fish.  A few minutes watching the water led to the conclusion that all the best fish were in the edges and under overhanging branches and other vegetation.

Places like these, just upstream of those yellow Fleur De Lys on the opposite bank.

The number of casts made in the day were constrained by the difficulties encountered when trying to get the fly under the alder, willow, hawthorn and such.  This turned out to be the best way, watching, waiting, looking for LITTLE rises to the Drake, the big splashy rises were the signature of small fish and so were ignored.  Some splendid fish were brought to the net.  Some fish were impregnable though.  Just look at these two pictures:

What you can see here is a feeder stream coming in near the top left of the picture.  See those bubbles and the crease in the main river flow?  This version will be easier to see what was happening:

There is a flow coming in from the feeder stream and it is being pushed to our left by the small woody debris at the mouth of the feeder.  The main current  coming directly from our left catches this feeder current and turns it down river.  Some of this flow is turned by the body of "still" water this side of the woody debris and so the whole of this is turned to make an eddy.  To add to the structure there is a degree of aerial cover afforded by the over hanging alder branch and its twigs and leaves.  There are at least ten fish feeding in this interesting place.  The largest of which I believe is the one downstream and under that alder on the right of the picture.  How many did I catch?  Not a one!  Controlling the drag was a puzzle that beat me soundly.  I love places like this and the trout that live there.  They make the river a true meritocracy and I'm sure someone better than me will have success here at some time in the future.

Onwards and upwards to further overhanging alder and hawthorn (and no, I will not illustrate the place for selfish reasons that will become obvious in a moment) and a beautiful brown trout of just under eighteen inches took my fly, which by now had been changed to a PPSG as there was a good return of spinner from just before two o'clock that the fish were seeming to prefer over the Drake.

 

That blue grey dot behind the eye and the three dots like a partial paw mark above the pectoral fin will make sure she is easily recognised again...

The trout reacted in the way decent sized brown trout often do, she bore down and deep and made for the roots by her station on the opposite bank from me.  Then suddenly at great speed she ran up river.  Side strain turned her towards me then even more suddenly she was airborne!  Then she skittered across the water towards me!   As she came near it was evident what caused this "illogical" action.  There was another brown trout beneath her that was simply enormous!!!  I'd guess it at the thick end of a yard long, easily as long as my arm anyway and "built" with it too.  The water was clear enough for me to see it very well, it was bulky as well as long, which says to me that it was in good condition and thriving.  It only turned away when my net was placed in the water...

This is the second very big trout I've seen in the last two seasons (ignoring the Town fish) and the other one was only a matter of 100 yards upriver from this monster.

I believe it is due to managing the river for wild fish only and the catch and release policy that we are now about to benefit from some very exciting developments.  Of course I will be back and watching carefully, even if I never catch the giant, knowing that it is there is very satisfying.




Regular Rod

Victim Support?

Here's a fish that at first glance is not in great condition and to be avoided by any angler as we don't want to catch sickly fish.  However, this is an exception that proves the rule.  The poor condition is due to this fish having difficulty in feeding (I believe so anyway).  Why can it not sustain itself?  It was once a fine brown trout now it is losing condition before its time.  What has gone wrong?  Check out just in front of that pectoral fin.  Can you see that pale beige line coming from the corner of the mouth?  It's fishing line!  It's been there a long time judging by the algae growing on it...

I want to catch this poor fish and take the hook out of its mouth, remove the impediment completely and let this fish have a go at regaining its condition through the summer.  Can I catch it?  Not unless I find it feeding at the surface first...



Regular Rod

Amadou - A Short Story in Pictures

Amadou is good stuff and well worth either the money or the hard work needed to obtain it.  It is quick to use, which when Sport is brisk proves advantageous.

First get your fly wet.

Lay the wetted fly in the Amadou and press it firmly.

The water comes out of the fly into the Amadou, making a temporary "Water Fossil".

The fly is restored to "as new" condition, ready for you to get it wet again...




RR

"80 percent of success is just showing up..."

So claimed Woody Allen in an interview some years ago about his career.

Yesterday it was the turn of Peter, the Wild Trout Trust winner of the auction lot comprising a day's fishing in Duck Holds Wood, to prove that claim.

Only the day before I'd offered him the chance to literally take a rain check.  I'm very glad he declined the offer, preferring to stick to our arrangement to meet at the Peacock in the morning and go to Duck Holds Wood together for a day of dry fly fishing.

We had a good time between rain showers.  First we wandered together from the downstream limit up to the top limit and Peter opened up the day by catching a wild rainbow trout at the top end in the pool known as "Upper Eddies". 

Peter into a Derbyshire Wye Wild Rainbow Trout at "Upper Eddies"

This coincided nicely with lunch time so back to the "fishing house" and some grub and a shared pot of Kelly Kettle tea and then, we split up so Peter could have some solitude whilst he worked his way slowly back up the river.

Your faithful correspondent went up river just past halfway, so that Peter would have plenty of undisturbed water to fish.  It was a splendid fishing afternoon.  Some fish seemed to be eating little beige sedge flies and accepted the Double Badger with enthusiasm; then there were those preferring some unidentified olives that ate the Grey Duster with similar gusto, the best of these for your blogger was a brown trout under the near bank about 8 inches from the edge under a tussock of healthy overhanging nettles.  Then, as the wind strengthened and the sky became leaden, the river was suddenly dotted with unfortunate Hawthorne flies that were ditched in the drink by the sudden squalls.  The light was such that the black flies showed up very well and so did the fish when they wolfed them down.  On with Charles Cotton's Black Fly and the Sport continued.

 A mobile 'phone call about a crisis at home meant that Peter had to get back so we packed up just before four o'clock, sad to be ending the fishing but happy with the results achieved and the whole occasion of fishing in this special place.  It was good to meet and fish with a kindred soul and we both look forward to some future meeting beside any of these glorious Derbyshire streams.

I later learned that, on other parts of the river, hardly anyone had ventured out to fish yesterday.  Peter's preference meant that we did.  80 percent of our work was done by this decision and we were there to reap the rewards.


(As ever, simply click on a picture if you would like a closer and clearer look...)



Regular Rod

All Fool's Day 2014

Can you remember what your faithful blogger endured last season on this auspicious date?

Snow, cold winds and frosts with Snowdrops out in full bloom almost three months late!

2014 and what a difference!

Bright sunshine, Lesser Celandines instead of Snowdrops, warm gentle breezes, almost flat calm really, fly life busy, there were even butterflies around... 

This Peacock only posed enough for a long focus grab shot but at least it was out and active along with Brimstones and others.

The trout were plentiful too and happy to eat my Double Badger with alacrity.

The only sad aspect to the day was seeing, once again, the permanent damage done by hydro-power to any river or stream where the greedy, thoughtless developers get to put it.  There is nothing green about hydro-power.  It does more damage than any other method of making electricity and what makes the blood boil is knowing that, in the UK, it is paid for with our taxes.

This is part of a depleted reach where once the water flowed generously between abundant beds of Ranunculus fluitans populated by hundreds of trout.  Now it is, as you can see, a brown desert, devoid of plant life and so almost empty of fish.

Here's the problem.  The main body of water is stolen from the river and diverted through a fish mincing turbine.  That main body of water is then discharged into a side channel (seen on the left of this picture) and it flows back into the river, where once the biggest (and best) trout in Derbyshire used to live.  They have all gone now along with the water plants.  The photograph at the head of this blog can never be repeated all thanks to the hydro thieves and carpet baggers.

It was good to be out fishing with the dry fly again but it could all be so much better if folk were not so greedy and careless.




Regular Rod

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