Mud

I'd been watching the river level rising since late Friday. Thankfully, even though it was already a tad high, it was only a couple of inches and it was now dropping again. When I got there it was a bit more coloured than I was expecting. It wasn't bad though. The banks, however, proved treacherous in places, steep sided and covered in a thing layer of mud. The wind and lack of promised sunshine made it a lot colder than it looked as I wandered down to the bottom end.

The plan of attack was small, well weighted nymphs on jig hooks. The jig hooks appeared to be working as I wasn't snagging anything like as often as normal. It was half an hour before I was into my first fish, a small chub or reasonable dace which came adrift as it reached the surface. A few casts later and I was into another fish which felt about the same size. It came to and abrupt halt as I brought it in. I managed to slip ans slide along the steep bank up stream of the snag retrieving the fly, but not the fish. After another 10 minutes of fling nymphs in and around the area I moved on.

The next section being somewhat shallower, I decided to wade rather than slip and slide about the bank. This didn't prove to bit such a bright idea though. After a little while my left foot became stuck in some very sticky, soft clay, sinking about nine inches. On the bank it's hard enough getting your foot out of this stuff. In the water it starts to become a bit farcical. Eventually I managed to free myself with out falling in and decided the bank wasn't so bad after all. Normally you can see the change in colour of the river bed and can avoid these areas.

Stopping at the bottom of one of the longer glides for a cuppa the sun came out and the bitter wind dropped. By the time I'd finished the odd fish was rising. A changed to a small plume fly soon had fish rising to it. For the life of me I was unable to contact with them though. A change from a size 20 to 16, in the hope that a bigger target may help, eventually connected with a fish. A small grayling like those I'd caught previously, foul hooked, flipped out of my hand and off the hook. A few more casts and the chill wind got up again and the sky started to blacken. I continued on with the nymphs to no avail. As I came with in sight of the car it started to drizzle and the sun came out again. By the time I reached the car it was looking like a nice day again, but I'd had enough.