Mayfly Bonanza

Went down to the local beck for a another short fluff chucking session today. Like last week, the place looked initially devoid of fish and fly life. This time, however, I'd remembered my polaroids, with their help I was surprised to see several shoals for fry and a couple of small shoals of gudgeon.

With no sign of any insect life on the water I started with a APT, All Purpose Terrestrial,  as I'd tied a few up. Casting it ahead of me, as I waded upstream, proved fruitless. After various changes of fly and no sign of rising fish anywhere I was nearly back at the car when I came across a swarm of midges and a rising fish. This took the same pheasant tail ginger dry I'd used last week. Just out of reach it jumped and flipped it's self of the hook as it jumped.

Around the next bend I spotted a couple of mayflies, which were taken in quick succession.  The fly was taken the moment it hit the water by what felt like a decent fish. This was confirmed when it performed a spectacular cartwheel before the line went slack. Cursing to myself I retrieved the line to find the fly missing. The tippet had gone about half way along it's length. I can only assume there had been a wind knot as there was a little kink at the end. Thankfully I was using a de-barbed hook so the fish should be able to rid it's self of the fly, and I need to change to a heavier tippet when I change to larger flies.