Chucking a Team of Three

It was nice wandering down to the river wondering whether to remove the fleece rather than thinking I should have brought another one. While the warm breeze was welcome the bright sunshine wasn't, as there was no sign of fly life. There was, however, a couple of those little pencil size eels heading upstream. While I'd rather have seen a couple of trout, I don't mind the eels given how scare they've become.


 







As there was no sign of fly life I set up a spider rig. A nine foot cast, I was using an eight foot rod, with a Black Magic on the top dropper, a partridge and orange on the middle, and a pearly butt bloa variant on the tip. As the third cast drifted towards me the tip of the fly line jagged, but I was a bit slow. Not on the next cast though. A lively little trout around the eight inch mark had taken my bloa variant. I had a couple more casts before moving a couple of yards upstream, I repeated this process a couple more times before contacting another fish on the bloa variant again. Then a third to the same fly. A little while later I spotted a rising fish, the first I'd seen. I covered it with a rather clumsy cast and struck at the swirl. Another little trout this time to the black magic. That was it for the next half hour so I stopped for a cuppa and sandwich.


 







It was  a while after I'd had my cuppa before I contacted another fish. This time on the partridge and orange. I then bumped a couple off before getting two more on the bloa variant. The next fish was on the black magic, again covering a rise. The final fish came to the bloa variant. I did see a couple more rising fish, but they were behind trailing branches and I couldn't get a cast to them.


 







Not a bad few hours. Nice not to be struggling to even get a take. One thing that was noticeable was that all the fish came from the slower glides that were one to two feet deep. Nothing came from deeper or shallower water or from broken water. I'm also glad my bloa variant worked. Based on Paul Proctors pearly butt bloa but with a grey hackle from a jackdaw head rather than waterhen hackle.