What's That One Called

Having not fished for over a month, I took my self down to a local beck for a couple of hours fluff chucking on Sunday.

Parking at the upstream end of the section I intended to fish I made my way down to the mid point of the section. The bits of water I looked at looked remarkably lifeless, no insects about any where and no fish, even minnows could be seen. Some days any bit of fur and feather can catch fish here. Other days even worms can fail. I only carry a couple of small fly boxes for little becks like this, ten foot wide at most, with about a dozen, or so, dry patterns in one and a similar amounts of nymphs and wets in the other. With no obvious fly life about I started of with a Grey Duster, a nice nondescript little fly. With no sign of anything rising I cast it to likely looking spots while steadily wading upstream, the high steep banks preventing fishing from the bank.

Eventually I came across a swarm of midges and a couple of fish taking the rather noisily. Despite covering the nicely my fly was ignored, a change to a small black hackled beastie produced the same, non, result. Staring at the fly box hoping for inspiration, the two little trout continued to take the midges with rather splashy rises. For some reason I picked out a ginger hackled dry that I had no idea of the name of or why it was in the box. Some divine inspiration must have been at work as it was taken the moment it hit the water, much to my surprise. Instead of just lifting in to it I struck with great vigour, dragging the fly from it's mouth. 

Thinking I'd scared both of, I started to wade upstream when the other fish rose again. A rather clumsy cast saw the fly land a foot down stream of it. As I gathered in the slack line the fly disappeared. A tug of the line and I was in contact. Leaping well clear of the water it throw the hook. Oh well, at least the choice of fly was correct.

I continued upstream throwing the odd speculative cast at likely looking spots before finding another fish or two rising noisily for midges. First cast and the fly was grabbed, but failed to contact. A couple more casts and I was into a very acrobatic little trout, which despite it's size put up quite a struggle.

That sadly this was the last of the fly life I saw as I made my way upstream. With no insects on the water I changed to a foam beetle, casting it close to tree roots and over hanging vegetation. All to no avail. By now it was getting a bit chilly so I called it a day. Given there isn't an abundance of trout in this little beck I was quite pleased with the result.