Last Thursday, after a spot of invertebrate sampling, I headed down to a beck to try a bit of nymphing. I much prefer dry fly, but the various work parties on the beck had shown the trout to be hiding in the deep holes by the tree roots. Drift a dry fly or dry dropper near them wasn't easy because of the complicated currents. So I'd decided to use a dropshot style rig. This is like a two fly nymph rig but the bottom fly is replaced with a split shot. It's advantages are that there's only one hook to get snagged and it's a lot easier and quicker to replace the shot if different weights are required. As there are lots of shrimp, gammarus, I opted for a Sawyer Killer Bug. The first hole I dropped it in a rather nice 9" WBT shot from under the bank and grabbed the nymph. I'd only dropped e rig in to see how it behaved.
I had a few more goes in and around the hole to see if the trout had a friend but nowt more appeared. The next hole was a tiny thing about afoot diameter besides a tree growing out from the bank. The bite was very savage for a tiny 4" WBT, The next couple of similar holes produced nothing.
The next couple of holes failed to produce before I got another good tug which failed to connect. Another couple goes were had before a gentle tug was felt and a rather splendid 11" WBT was hooked and landed. Another few tries before moving on produced another tiny little 4" WBT.
Another few holes were tried before coming to a four foot deep hole half full of weed and debris. I'd just about given up when the rod lurched over. Another little WBT around the 5" mark. These little 'uns don't half hit the bait.
It was then quite a while before I got another take. An L shaped tree jutted out from the bank just past a corner creating a very nice looking hole that I'd always thought should hold a fish or two. I'd drifted dry flies about the area but to no avail. With only a № 1 shot on I could drift the bug right under the tree, eventually. After several goes a trout swam up looked at the bug I gave it a twitch at which point it was engulfed. After a great deal of leaping about the trout managed to beach it's self and was scooped up in the net. The biggest of the day at 12" it's colours really don't show in the photo but it was more fawn than brown.
Not a bad session at all, and finishing on the best I've caught from this beck. No sign of the escapee rainbows either. A little brook lamprey we disturbed today while removing the weed and debris from a couple of spots that were allowing a silt build up.
The reason for the late delivery of this post is because I made a right cock of a computer upgrade and also decide to allow my phone to upgrade to the next OS version while a I waited for the computer backup to restore. The nearest i normally get to multitasking is sit down and shut up, so this wasn't a good idea. Hopefully things are back to normal now on the IT front.
Nowt worse than IT issues. No call to the support line though. Nice fishing
ReplyDeleteProblems with one device is bad enough but two at the same time is areal problem, especially when I'm tech support.
ReplyDeleteThe fishing was good as you normally struggle to get even one trout on this stretch, but after a lot of work over several years things are getting better.