Putting on a recently tied daddy long legs, there was loads crawling about in the grass. I decided to see how well it rode in the faster more turbulent water. Very well as it turned out. Third cast and a small fish had a go at it. A couple more casts and I was in, momentarily. I had a few more casts before wandering upstream. With nothing stirring I was just prospecting in various likely looking spots. Apart from the odd tiny tiny dace nipping at the trailing legs, nothing else stirred.
Further on I spotted a reasonable fish under some weed. With a bit of top class casting, and help from a gust of wind, I managed to land the fly with a mighty plop, a good two foot from the weed. No matter, the trout shot out from under the weed and grabbed it. Clearly the feather like touch f the last couple hours had been the wrong approach. After a short, but spirited fight it was in the net. My first trout on dry fly from this stretch, after years of trying.
I was amazed how far it had managed to get such a big fly down it's throat, Thankfully I’d de-barbed the hook, so it was easily removed. Quite pleased with my self I set off upstream to see if I could find any more. I saw nothing more as I neared the top of the stretch, as the skies were starting to darken somewhat I headed back to the car. After a brief shower things brightened up a tad and the wind dropped so I decided to try a different stretch for the last hour before dark.
The only fish that were active seemed to be hoards of tiny dace, so small the couldn't even manage a size 20 IOBO. I did eventually manage to hook a couple of 4" specimens. Hopefully they'll survive the floods and we should see some decent shoals of dace in this stretch again.
There was also a notable increase in frogs and toads becoming active as it got dark, presumably fatting up for their winter hibernation on all the cane flies crawling about.
No comments:
Post a Comment