Once More Into The Valley

 Driving up to the fishing in the drizzle wasn't the start I'd wanted but it did keep the dust down on the track up the valley. The drizzle got heavier as I arrived at the parking place so a cuppa seemed like a good idea. Once the drizzle had stopped I wandered through the woods to the beck. Every time a gust of wind blow I got rained on again. This was going to make spotting rising fish a bit of a problem. The gusts also brought down large quantities of scales from leaf buds. While they are quite useful in showing you were the flow goes, it's not always where you think. They're a bit of a menace when it comes to casting a fly.

With precious little fly life about bar some 'black stuff' I put on a small DH Midge and proceeded to chuck it about into the likely looking spots and anywhere else for that matter. The leaf debris and the aftermath of the drizzle been blown form the trees got to be a bit of a nuisance to say the least. I really couldn't tell if fish were rising or not. I also developed an uncanny knack of landing the fly on the leaf debris.

Eventually the debris cleared long enough to spot a fish rising midstream. A couple of casts and I was into a lively little 6" wild brown trout.

 

I continued on up to the weir with nothing else to show for my efforts. No large insects had shown all morning. Time for luncheon. When I got back to the parking spot a couple more anglers had arrived. A bit of a discussion took place with everybody offering to let everybody else have first choice of where to fish. One chap was to go over the section I'd fished and and another was going upstream with me following  once I'd had my lunch.

More fish were rising in the afternoon and a fair few mayfly were fluttering about. I saw a trout rise for one but miss it as the mayfly took of from the water just in time. I tried a couple of larger flies but the trout weren't interested. The chap above me hook but lost one. The chap that went up the lower section took one on dry, the only rise he saw, a fifteen on nymph. I suspected the nymph may be the tactic but I much prefer dry fly and for now I'm sticking to it. I think, as do others, that the very sporadic hatches are one of the reasons the fish aren't really looking up. If the weather would just settle I think we'd have some great dry fly action here.