Several Changes of Plan

 My original plan for Thursday was to park up at the top of the stretch I intended to fish, walk down to the bottom and fish back to the car. This idea was stymied by a fallen tree across the track. I could drag it so far but it had fallen between a couple of large rocks which would require me to lift it  as well. My back suggested this wasn't a good idea. Annoyingly I'd taken my bow saw out of the car earlier in the week. There's nothing much in the way of phone signal around here, so it was back to the village to get in touch with the appropriate people. Having informed them I set off back round to the parking at bottom of the stretch. Before that I had a look at the weather forecast as it seemed to be drizzling for longer than I'd expected. I suspect my clumsy fingers had brought up Friday's forecast and not Thursday's.

Arriving at the bottom of the stretch the drizzle had now turned to rain. A cuppa seemed like a good idea while I contemplated whether to fish or not. The drizzle eased off and I decided to stay. It was while setting up that I discovered I left my box of nymphs at home. I been sorting the fly boxes out during the week and had replenished the nymphs and put them in a separate box. Given the complete lack of fly life nymphing seemed to be the way to go. Others had been catching up to a dozen fish on nymphs. A small goldhead PTN was found in an old fly box in my bag. This went on and started chucking it into the deeper holes. This plan soon fell apart when it became snagged in one of the deep, three foot, holes. Despite paddling across the beck I was unable to get to the nymph which seemed to have disappeared in among the roots.

It was now dry fly time, whether I liked it or not., I tried anything from a large retirer sedge to a little IOBO and everything in between. In the time I fished I managed to spook only two fish and saw one rise once under some barbed wire across the beck. After another cuppa I had another change of plan. This nearest fly to a nymph I could find was a small Black Magic Spider so this went on and I had another got but to no avail. As i got back to the car as the drizzle turned back to train another angler arrived. After a natter he went on his way with some nice heavy nymphs while I went to have a wander round the pond. The rain had stopped but you wouldn't have known it under the trees round the pond. Every gust of wind brought down a deluge off the leaves. Quite a few of the stocked browns were showing but out in the middle. When I spotted one close to the bank I couldn't resist having a go. I cast the little spider out in front of it. It cruised up and grabbed it. It was at this point I remembered I only had a 2.3lb tippet on and there's a fair bit of weed in the pond. Luckily for me the 17" brown was cooperative and stay away from the weed. It did have an attempt at gathering twigs by swimming along the bank, but none caused a problem. By sitting on the bank I was able to gather it up in the little scoop net.

I did contemplating getting a longer rod out of the car and doing a bit more in the pond but the strong wind made life under the trees very unpleasant. One day I'm going to arrive on a pleasant day with abundant fly life about and trout rising everywhere, even to my fly and have a nice day.