Nice But Nuisance Grayling

 Thursday started a bit chilly but came out bright and sunny. A typical Autumn day really. While bright and sunny is rather nice for a spot of River Fly Monitoring it isn't really great for trout fishing. No shortage of Baetis and Gammerus. A surprise Stonefly nymph was found. A first for the beck.

Site 3 19 Sept 2024, 10 am	Count	ARMI   2 Bullheads
Cased Caddis	25	2
Caseless Caddis	2	1
Baetis	600	3
Stonefly	1	1
Blue Winged Olive	1	1
Heptagens	0	0
Mayfly	0	0
Gammerus	500	3
Trigger level = 6	ARMI score total =	11

Site 4  11:00 am	Count	ARMI   Bloodworm
Cased Caddis	8	1
Caseless Caddis	9	1
Baetis	105	3
Stonefly	0	0
Blue Winged Olive	5	1
Heptagens	0	0
Mayfly	0	0
Gammerus	120	3
Trigger level = 7	ARMI score total =	9

After lunch we participated in a spot of angling. I had a wander upstream while the others had a wander downstream. As expected it was tough going in the bright sunshine. It was nice to see the pods of grayling up and down the length. These though would become a nuisance later.

 

A the only fish rising were the little grayling I avoided dry flies a stuck with nymphs drifting them next to the weed beds euro style. The only tout I saw were escapee rainbows. Thy did a great job of ignoring my offerings most of the time. When they did show interest a grayling would usually dive in before them. I was interesting watching the grayling's reaction to the small nymphs. The silver bead one was generally ignored. They seemed to prefer the copper bead, along with the killer bug and a black spider.

 I took several of the little grayling despite me trying to avoid them. Apart from one, for a photo, the rest were shaken from the barbless hook in the water. The others had given up earlier than me and moved on to a more productive water. I did do a spot of balsam bashing though. A pleasant day by a beck even so.

RFM And Trout Fishing

 The started with a spot of River Fly Monitoring. No real surprises. Numbers slightly down below the CSO which isn't surprising given the recent rain had it running. Having completed that I headed down to near the bottom of the stretch for a spot of fluff chucking. The beck looks like it should hold good numbers of trout as is does above the village. The bankside vegetation is now very lush and makes some parts a bit claustrophobic. The level was up just a couple of inches or so.  I only managed to raise one fish which I missed. I did spook several more hiding under overhanging branches that were trailing in the water. I had run flies as close to them as I could but I don't think they were really looking up. I did see a shoal of small silver fish on my walk down. Probably dace, maybe. So here are a few pics of the beck.

After a cuppa I tried to fish another short length, but a couple of mallard kept spooking the fish. The ducks would fly a little way upstream then drift back until they saw me. They'd then take of again and land a bit further up and drift back towards me. In doing this they did spook a few of the small escapee rainbows.

RFM & Hunting Aliens

 Thursday started with a spot of River Fly Monitoring. Four of us kicked sampled a couple of sites above and below a sewerage outlet. The results were much as expected with no alarms apart from a large increase in blood worm below the outfall.

Site 3 11 July 2024, 10:00	Count	ARMI
Cased Caddis	46	2
Caseless Caddis	1	1
Baetis	500	3
Stonefly	0	0
Blue Winged Olive	14	2
Heptagens	0	0
Mayfly	0	0
Gammerus	300	3
Trigger level = 6	ARMI score total =	11

Site 4 11 July 2024, 11:00	Count	ARMI
Cased Caddis	22	2
Caseless Caddis	8	1
Baetis	200	3
Stonefly	0	0
Blue Winged Olive	31	2
Heptagens	0	0
Mayfly	1	1
Gammerus	300	3
Trigger level = 7	ARMI score total =	12

A few Bullheads and a solitary Stickleback put in and appearance as well. The Bullheads are far more tolerant of pollution than was previously thought. 

After a spot of lunch it was time to try and capture some of the escapee rainbows. There were a couple of hotspots for them. One chap fished fly larva under a float in one spot. While another fished nymphs on a French style leader in the other. I had a wander downstream with a euro nymphing setup. Euro style nymphing is not something I do very often, which is probably why I'm not very good at it. A couple of runs down between the weeds and the indicator showed a bite. It felt like something of a decent size but didn't feel like a trout. Through the clear water I could see an eel which plunged into the weed and snaffled my fly.

A couple of swims later I managed to hook a reasonable brown trout which I managed lose with the classic poking the rod tip into the over hanging hawthorn technique. In the next swim I spotted a couple of good sized grayling. They were over the other side of a weed bed and to reach them I'd have to wade. The beck though was quite a way up following the rain earlier in the week. While it was three foot deep next to the bank it was a bit deeper further out. The bottom was also softer and after stating to sink I decided better of it. The kerfuffle of me get back to the bank spooked the grayling. A few more swims were tried as I continued upstream, along with changes to fly. Eventually I managed a couple of the escapee rainbows.

I didn't catch any more by the time I'd reached the others. My couple of fish looked a bit pathetic to the numbers they'd caught. As they pointed out though, they had been in the hotspots.

After another go a couple of us had another go but the rainbows were happy to follow the flies but not take. Only one more was caught. I had ago from below the hotspot with spiders but this was the same. I could see the fish following them turn away. We'll be back to remove some more.

 

RFM and Fluff Flinging

 The bank holiday was also a RFM day, so off I popped up to the beck for a bit of creepy-crawly counting. There are two sites for the count. One above town and one below. Along with the invertebrates used for the count there were a fair few chironomids, a fingerling trout, a minnow (the first in several years apparently), and a few bullhead were also dredged up. The counts went quite quickly with plenty of us helping. Chasing BWO nymphs around a large white tray isn't the easiest pastime.

 

Cased caddis	110	3
Caseless caddis	8	1
Baetis	130	3
Stonefly	4	1
BWO	20	2
Heptagens	40	2
Mayfly	40	2
Gammerus	60	2
	ARMI score total =	16

Cased caddis	30	2
Caseless caddis	5	1
Baetis	110	3
Stonefly	20	2
BWO	40	2
Heptagens	250	3
Mayfly	30	2
Gammerus	80	2
	ARMI score total =	17

After a spot of lunch I headed up to the woods for a spot of fishing. Others attacked different beats. Some did better than others. I stuck with dry fly. An olive klinkhammer was to be flung about. Not long after entering the woods I saw a fish rise. I sat and waited to see if it would rise again, which it did. The first cast was not only short of the mark but on the wrong side of the beck. A couple more casts in the right place and the fish took the fly. A rather nice 10' WBT. 

A bit further along while casting to likely looking spots I spotted another fish rising. I waited a while for another rise, and got two odd looking ones. The another very splashy rise, but this time I saw something plummeting to the water. looking up I spotted a squirrel faffing about. The bits of debris hadn't passed me but were being pushed into the bank by the current. As I made my way past the squirrel I got a fright from a mallard leaving her nest hidden among some brambles.

Around a rather twisty bit I spotted another fish rising. It was a fish as I could see it. The current here was all over the place. After a couple of cast I managed to get a decent drift. I saw the fish come up, but the fly was suddenly dragged away by the current. I had a few more goes but didn't see the fish again.

Just round the corner another fish was rising. I have no idea what any of them were rising to as I'd seen nothing hatching. A stunning first cast in tight surrounds saw the fly drift a couple of inches before being taken. The moment I struck it shot down stream at great speed and I had trouble hauling the line in quick enough to keep contact with it. After a bit of faffing about I had the fish in front of me, but I was up on the bank with a little scoop net. The water under the bank looked deep, but with no way of taking the fish up or down stream I crashed into the water. It was only knee deep the shadows had made it look deeper and darker. Another WBT of a similar size.

I decided against speculative casting and wandered along the bank looking for rising fish. I did find another but it didn't seem to like my fly. I soon came to the bridge, no sign of a bridge trout, which is about three quarters of a mile from the car along the public footpath. No idea how far I'd walked along the very wiggly beck though.

While had a cuppa back at the car I did a Big River Watch survey. A kingfisher kindly shot past as I stood on the bridge. The first I've seen on the beck.

I managed to avoid the worst of the holiday traffic getting home. At home I discovered a problem when trying to transfer the day's photos. Every one of them was corrupted. As they phone only backs up over WiFi I had no other copies. I got the files off with a lot of messing about but can't convince any software that they're photos. A scan of the SD card showed some corruption so, with everything else backed up, I reformatted the card. Things seem to be working OK again now. If I manage to sort the files I'll update the blog with the photos.