Otter, Mayfly, and Moo-cows

Friday morning checking GaugeMap showed the rivers in The Dales falling after rising on Thursday, some nearly a metre. The Moors rivers, though, were for the most part back at usual levels having risen a tad earlier in the week. A Moors fed river it was then. As expected, though, there was a bit more colour than usual. Some of this, I found out later, was coming from one of the feeder becks. It didn't effect the fishing too much as there was a few trout rising, and lots of small dace. These were to prove an utter nuisance at times.

 








The first obstacle to deal with, on arrival, was getting past the inquisitive moo-cows guarding the gate. This was easily solved by going through the other gate. I'd got halfway to the gate at the other side of the field before they spotted me, but soon caught me up. I don't mind cattle, but the youngsters can be a bit unpredictable and are easily spooked. As happened when a pheasant rose, squawking as it went, causing the herd to panic and scatter. One of them brushing past me as it went. Thankfully there were none in the field by the river, as they do tend to stand in the way of your backcast.

 








As I wandered up and down he rive looking for rising trout there were a fair few insects fluttering about, olives of various sizes, iron blue, mayfly, the occasional sedge as well as the odd hawthorn. The problem was, it was mainly little, and very little, dace that were splashing at them. Eventually I found a rising trout taking olives, so an appropriately sized foam dun was selected. This is were the dace proved to be a real pain. Their splashy rises tend to drown the fly and with a CDC wing a couple of false casts doesn't really dry it. Eventually I landed the fly right on it's nose and was in. After a short, but spirited fight it was in the net. It most of really wanted that fly as it was deep down it's throat. After resting in the net it swam away strongly. I waited around to see if any other trout were about before head off for another search. After a little while I saw what I thought was a very large trout taking mayfly. As I got closer I began to think it was a rather odd looking fish and it was. When it turned and looked at me I realised it was an otter which had been porpoising along taking the Mayfly. In fact, along with the Martins, it was the only thing I saw taking Mayfly the trout didn't seem to touch them.

 








A bit further on I found a couple of trout rising, superbly positioned in an eddy behind some flood debris and under a willow. The insects were been flushed into the eddy for the trout to pick off. Try as I might I couldn't reproduce this with the artificial. As the hatches seemed to be thinning out. I decided to head to another stretch. As I opened the gate I noticed several mayfly on the gate post and loads more in the adjacent hedge, some fifty yards from the river. There most have been quite a hatch earlier in the day as there was nowhere near this number on the river. The wind had clearly blown them over the field to the hedge. I had seen a couple get blown into the field when they had flown up above the height of the flood bank and been caught by the wind.

 








At the next stretch I quickly came upon a trout rising between the bank and some wooden piles where the bank used to be. The fish took first cast and followed a very silly few minutes as the fish weaved in and out of the piles while I wandered up and down the bank trying to stop the leader snagging. Just as I got it in the net the hook came adrift. The fish, about the same size as the previous one, had a hell of a lot more go in it. It took a little while to recover in the net. As it recovered I noticed it had coughed up a Loach. Meanwhile a fish was now rising downstream very close to the bank. Once the fish was ready I released it and headed towards the other. The best course of action seemed to be to lower the fly between the over hanging vegetation as this prevented casting close enough to it. After a couple of attempts the fish took and dived under the bank. Everything went solid then gave and up popped a neatly hooked branch. How fish manage to do that I don't know.

 








This was to be the last trout I saw rising and the hatches had all but stopped. Even the Martins had stopped swooping around. As I could also feel the first twinges of Hay Fever I called it a day. It had been a lot of wandering about for a couple of trout, but this section of river is really considered a coarse fishery with a few trout in it. As most anglers tell me the trout hardly ever rise here and it's not worth trying fry fly I consider it a very successful day. On the way back to car I partook of a bit of Balsam bashing.