With the pollen count at Very High on Monday and my nose already protesting, wandering through a field of long grass down to the beck may seem like a silly idea. Suitable dosed up with appropriate medication the effects tend to nearly disappear ten to fifteen minutes after arrival. I spent this time trying to work out what the fish were taking. There was good variety of flying beasties about, including quite a large number of Mayfly. This was the best I've seen here for a number of years. Not prolific, but enough over the length of this section not to make you disheartened about the state of the beck. Unlike the bank repairs I'd seen in p[laces on the way down. Undercuts had been removed from bank making it vertical. The bottom had been scrapped out and used to fill in where the bank had started to collapse, making the banks rather uniform and ditch like. The only benefit to the beck is that it's been taken down to the gravel in some areas, removing the fine sand.
The fish clearly weren't taking the Mayfly, even the spent ones. Nor did they seem to be taking the various Baetis or the occasional hawthorn. I went with a small grey duster which was mobbed the moment it it hit the water. Bloody minnows, swarms of them. Every now and then one would hook itself, but most of the time they'd just drown the fly. A little later on at another pool the shadows suggested large fish and so they were, but dace not the trout I was after. The shoals of minnows were really rather large at times, the whole of the river bed suddenly seemed to move past me as I waded upstream.
A nice untouched section showed more promise and with the sun not glinting on the water I could see a trout taking something by some tree roots. After a couple of dubious casts the grey duster, now a parachute style for no good reason, bounced off the roots and after a few inches drift was grabbed by the trout. I failed to contact with it snagging the rod tip in the bankside vegetation. The fish never rose again in the ten minutes I sat and watched. Round the next corner or two, one maybe two trout were rising. After a bit of shuffling about in order to get a cast in with out snagging the high bank or over hanging tree behind me I managed to get a couple of casts in which were ignored. I waited for another rise then tried again. Eventually I got a take and was into a rather nice little WBT. Somewhat bigger than average for the beck. Not a spectacular looking fish, but welcome non the less.
I waited quite a while to see if there was a second fish, but nothing rose. By now the sun had disappeared behind the trees and things were cooling off. Further up an impenetrable barrier of water plants and briars had me doubling back to a lower less steep section of bank in order to bypass them. There seemed to be no spinner fall despite the large number of insects about earlier, but a riser was spotted on a long straight section. Trying to creep up while wading on a slow smooth section is not easy and the ripples I created seemed to put the fish down. Standing still in the gloaming the fish started to rise again. A couple of drifts and I got a take and missed. I sat on a bit of a shelf in the steep bank and waited as the final section is an unfishable tangle of hawthorns and briars. Before it got too dark to see I had a couple of drifts that resulted in nowt but squinty eyes trying to see then fly.
Not the most productive evening, but the presence of the dace is good, in a way, as I haven't seen them this far up in a long time. The minnows, as ever, are a bloody nuisance. The repair work has lost some nice undercuts where trout used to hide and on evenings like this would pop out to grab a meal. I don't know where those fish are now. I hope they've moved upstream and are hiding under the briars. I did, when wandering along gather some broken branches and set them into the repaired banks in the hope something may take up residence.
The middle of the week now looks like it may precipitate. Lets hope it's more than a bit of drizzle as the rivers could do with a freshen up and gardens would benefit., along with the tinder box moors.
No comments:
Post a Comment