Return of the Disappearing Dace

Had a bank holiday trip out to the local beck for a spot of fluff chucking. With a slight tinge of colour in it and running higher than normal for this time of year it looked quite promising. Especially as I could see a few fish rising up stream of my vantage point on the bridge.

 On wandering up I found it was a reasonable shoal of dace rising for something I couldn't make out. It was nice to see them again, as they had all but disappeared after the Christmas floods of 15/16. First cast with a suspender nymph was a little short of the back of the shoal, but the second was taken after a short drift. Quickly hustled away from the shoal so as not to disturb them, a plump little dace was quickly to hand. Two more followed. Unfortunately the third one proved just too much for the shoal, which spoked and scattered upstream. Still, extracting more than one from a shoal in such a small narrow stream isn't bad.

As I waded upstream it was obvious that the flood caused by the recent thunderstorms had made a good job of scouring the sand and silt away as large stretches were now back to gravel. Sadly it had also decimated the water plants that had just started to make a come back after been lost in the 15/16 floods. Although I don't suppose the increasingly heavy tree cover is helping much either.

Having found nothing more the minnows along the rest of the stretch I was back in the car to another length. Again it appeared that there was only the occasional shoal of minnows till I got near the top and spotted several dace rising . As I edged upstream to a point were I could cast at them I failed to notice a smaller shoal until it was too late. They spoked upstream straight into the larger shoal and scattered them as well. Despite this it's nice that they're back. All that’s needed now is for the trout to reappear as they seem to have vanished.