I Think It May Have Rained

In the tackle shop, yesterday, I was informed that the Rye and Derwent had fined down were fishing well with a few grayling coming out of the Rye. As I had a fifteen foot Greys Toreon Tactical Float Rod to christen the Rye would be ideal. I wouldn't normally fish the Rye with a rod that long as it's only a little river, but it needs christening and a grayling would be I nice way to christen it. I knew it had rained overnight and had noted the rivers had risen slightly, but I wasn't expecting them to be mud flows when I got there.

I decided to give it an hour or so trotting maggots through the fast, slow, shallow, deep bits, or various combinations of the afore mentioned. The first thing I did was remove the bottom four inches or so section of the butt. This means there is nothing sticking out beyond the elbow. I'd tried it with and with out at home, with a reel on, and there was no discernable difference to the balance. The rig was a three and a half gramme loafer with a three gramme olivette stopped by a small swivel and three number six shot with another number six as a marker hot just under the float. A simple setup that is easy to change the depth with as I roamed a few swims. I must say the rod is very pleasant to use even if I didn't get any bites to hit or fish to land. I ended up spending two hours wandering about different swims with nothing to show for it. I did see one outflow with water pouring out of it that I've never seen flow before. In fact the ditch it comes from normally only gets slightly damp.

After some lunch I moved to the Derwent fishing the same tactics. The Derwent wasn't as coloured as the Rye initially, but coloured up later in the afternoon. I worked my my up towards the weir fishing some of the deeper swims as I went. Apart from a twig I had nothing to show by the time I reached the weir. The river had continued to slowly rise, but wasn't a bad colour below the weir. I had done well here in the past with the river around this height. Not long after getting to the weir I had my first bite, which resulted in a blown maggot. The next cast I thought I was into something small. It turned out to be a stone. The hook had snagged an old caddis case. Just as I was thinking of moving I got a couple more bites, which I missed. The I has little gudgeon, which flipped off the hook as I lifted it out of the water. Nearly christened the rod. I had a couple more chewed maggots over the next half hour before heading back downstream towards the car. Tried a bit of stret-pegging. in a couple of swims, but again failed to elicit and attention from fish. By now it was starting to drizzle and the river colour had turned to muddy beige. I took the hint and headed home.

It wasn't the height the rivers had risen to, but the colour they'd turned that was the problem and the speed they'd turned to mud coloured. All the fields near the rivers had standing water in them as the ground now appears to be saturated so any rain just runs straight into the river.  I'm going to have to change my days off from work as the reports I get seem to indicate Tuesday and Wednesday fish better than Thursday and Friday.