First Day Of The River Season 2024

The weather for the start of the river season didn't look great. Heavy rain and strong winds sweeping though, making a nuisance of it's self. The height of the the rivers would be effected and as I'd rather start the season trotting for what ever this  isn't great. However a video by River Foss Fishing, who'd been out at midnight, showed my intended destination looking reasonable. When I got there mid-afternoon the level had dropped an inch or two but the water was coloured. It was suitable for a spot of stick n' pin.

After the showers on the way there the sun came and the gusty wind got stronger. Thankfully the high banks and trees protected me form the worst of the gusts until they dropped. Tactics were simple. I'd be trotting maggots over hemp for what ever. There were three distinct currents though the swim. A nice slower glide at 5' 6" deep on the inside. A fast 6' deep section a third they way across. After that it was a lot quicker and around 7' deep. Hemp was tossed into all three. The first fish of the season was a bit of a fluke. I'd dropped the baited rig into the edge while I adjusted the seat. When I lifted it out a little roach had hooked itself.

I tied dropping the bait back in the edge for a while but nothing else grabbed hold. I started to feed the three swims while alternating between them. It was quite while before my next fish, a small dace, turned up from the middle of the three swims. This was quickly followed by a small chublet. It then went rather quiet.

As the sun moved behind the trees the bites started to increase. Not that I could hit a lot of them. As the bites where coming from the middle swim I concentrated on that one. I did still keep feeding the other two swims but not as much and not as often. A bit of twiddling of the shot and depth produced a couple of stamp roach. Then a few bleak before going quiet again. As it was now tea time I increased the depth and put the rod on the rest fishing the inside line.

My hope of adding a gudgeon to the species tally while I had something to eat had failed. I fished the three different swims but only the middle one was producing the odd small roach, bleak and dace. By now the temperature had dropped. Like a twit I'd left my fleece in the car. The bites stated to tail off. As did my enthusiasm until a decent dace was taken right at the bottom of the swim. Due to the trees on my side I couldn't fish further than this as I could no longer see the float despite leaning precariously out over the water. This was to be the last fish of the day.

I ended the session with two dozen fish for around 3½lb. One fish every ten minutes.  pleasant enough start given how coloured the rivers was. Ledgering for barbel may have been a better idea but I like to start the season float fishing and that's what I did. The weather for the rest of the week is best described as variable and no doubt the rivers will be a bit all over the place but I shall persist.

 

Opening Up The Beck And A Spot Of Fishing

We'd spent the morning removing fallen trees from over the beck opening it up to fishing and wading. A couple of us decided on a spot of fishing but only had a short time available so we decided to fish the beat closest to the cars after a spot of lunch.

 

I followed the other chap as we made our way upstream. We'd seen the odd mayfly and olive fluttering about but not much was rising. I opted for a Elk Hair Caddis again. The basic tactic was to wade along the edge and cast the fly into the middle of the beck as this seemed to be where we'd had most luck in the past.  Having left the water due to a deep hole and re-entered. I flicked the fly out near the edge and started to pull some line from the reel when a trout took the fly. I had so much slack in the system that I didn't get a proper strike and the fish came adrift. Further up the was a nice riffle over a little weir. I cast the fly right to the weir and on the second cast the fly was snatched. A little 6" WBT was quickly in the net.

That was my lot for the session. The other chap had had nothing until we got to the top of the beat where he took three fish in quick succession. A little 'un and a couple around the 10" mark all on a small paradun.

Fluff Flinging A New Beat (And A Bit Of Balsam Bashing)

 My intention was to explore a beat I'd not fished before, but first I'd have a fish on a beat I had fished before. There was a noticeable absence of fly life, apart from the usual black stuff, so I put on a small Klinkhammer to start with. The odd fish I could see rising to the black stuff just ignored it. A mayfly fluttered past at one point. then some olives. Although I didn't see anything rising to them I changed to a Foam Dun. Not that this excited the fish in any way. Nor did a small daddy.

A change to a Double Badger did the trick. An 8" WBT was straight on it and quickly in the net. As I was bout to move on another fish rose and a couple of casts later a slightly smaller WBT was in the net. I moved up to the last couple of pools and managed similar sized fish out of each.

After a late lunch I headed down another track to access the beat I'd not fished before. I had a brief natter with a local farmer who reckoned you didn't see as many fish in the beck as you used to years ago and told me to avoid one of the fields as it had some highly inquisitive calves in it. Really there was no point in me enter the filed as it didn't provide any access to the beck.

 

The first thing I found when I got to the beck was a rather lovely pool. I sat and watched for a few minutes but nothing rose, despite there being plenty of black stuff fluttering about. Wandering further downstream it was clear that access was limited but there were plenty of nice looking pools. I did see a couple of rising fish but they'd carefully positioned themselves so as the prevent cast to them. Even the good old bow-and arrow, or hook-in-thumb cast wasn't really on. I then came across a stand of Himalayan Balsam. I immediately  went in to balsam bashing mode. A couple more small stands were found further downstream and ripped up. This cost me an hours fishing time, but I'm just unable to leave the stuff to grow.

With fishing time curtailed I made my way back upstream looking for rising fish of which I found a few. Access,as i said, was a bit limited. remains of a barbed wire fence close to the water. Sheer banks and water of unknown depth didn't help either. Most of the casting was the bow-and-arrow style from the bank. I managed to produce three 6" WBT like this, but spooked even more.

Eventually I reached the railway pool where fish were now rising. Several casts with the double badger produced nothing. A change to an Elk Hair Caddis, as I seen a couple of stonefly about, produced a fish straight away, which felt better than anything I'd caught earlier. Somehow I managed to bump it off. I sat and waited to see if I'd ruined the pool completely. Thankfully a fish started to rise again. A horrible cast splashing the fly hard onto the water produced a rise straight away. A rather stunning 10" WBT eventually graced the net. While I played this fish another was rising at the head of the pool. It ignored my first cast, which I think was a bit short anyway. A second attempt had the fly snagged in a tree stump behind me. The third cast, however, landed right on the money. Unfortunately what felt like and even bigger fish managed to shed the hook.

That was it. I sat another 15 minutes but nowt else rose. I had a few speculative casts with out success. 

I don't know if I'd done any better if I hadn't been sidetracked by the balsam, but I'll be back. I suspect wading it will be fun. It'll probably mean a lot of back tracking as some of the fallen trees don't look easily passable and the banks are rather tall and sheer in places. All good fun really.

Balsam Bashing Then Stockie Bashing

The morning was spent balsam bashing along the banks of one of the becks. The amount of balsam has markedly decreased f the last few years but it's now mainly growing in among the nettles and hiding under the trees so takes a bit more work to spot. Persistence is the key.

After we'd finished some of decided to retire to one of the ponds for luncheon and a maybe a bit of fishing for the stocked browns. While the other two bobbed about in the boats I decided to have a fish from the bank.

While the other two fished a duo rig with a small PTN on the end I opted for a small sparkle tail Griffith's gnat as fish were rising close to the bank. The first to take my fly was one of the recent stockies at 16" which put up a fair fight on the weight three rod.  The PTHs were catching but I persisted with the dry. The next fish was lost when it throw the hook. The boat anglers were getting some unmissable bites that they missed. I the suffered the same. The fly was getting sucked under but I could hook them no matter how quick or slow I struck.

Time flew past pretty quickly and it was soon time to go. The nymph anglers had half a dozen fish to the net I had just the one on dry. A nice way to waste a couple of hours.

A Quick Dabble

 Having carried out my minder duties and had a cuppa I wasn't totally sure about a quick bit of angling as there was a rather chilly wind and the fleece I had is far from wind proof. By the time I'd made up my mind to give it a go the was only about forty minutes before I had to be elsewhere. A seven foot rod  and a small goldhead PTN Seemed to be right for a quick dabble.

Really I should of used the eight footer as I could only just reach over the weed to drift the nymph along. Second drift down I got a take and up popped one of the little escapee rainbows. A few more drifts close to the weed and I latch onto another which I managed bump off swinging to hand. I moved up the beck drifting the nymph close to the edge of various patches of weed. I managed a couple more takes which I didn't connect with. Around the next bend the swan family were drifting down. The cob made it clear I wasn't welcome. So back up the bank. No point in pissing off swans with cygnets.

I tried a few more holes but nothing came of them. The wind had now turned around a bit as wasn't as chilly, time was up very quickly. I'd caught a fish so it was OK.

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.

More Partying & A Spot Of Fishing

After viciously attacking the brambles, hawthorn, etc. that were creeping over the path around the pond creating trip hazards and or the potential to poke your eye out I had an hour or so on the little beck that runs along side. This one doesn't get badly affected by the rain and tends to run clear, very clear, most of the time.

There were a few olives fluttering about and the odd mayfly, lacewing, and small daddy also seen. Dry fly seemed the obvious choice, but what to tie on the end. A quick natter with the local sheep reviled them to be from the Oliver Edwards semi realistic camp. The one that caught my eye as I went through the box was a Nigel Nunn inspired YTP type thing. Somewhat lighter dressed though.

The trick with little streams like this is to stomp along the bank spooking the fish so you know where they are. You then wit for them to settle before snagging the fly on the barbed wire fence or chucking it into the overhanging branch the fish is hiding under. This is what it seemed to be like to me. Eventually I landed a the fly on the water and a fish went for it at great speed. It grabbed the fly somersaulted out of the water and spat the fly out again before I knew what was happening. The next three fished that may or may not have grabbed the fly I missed. Eventually a fish stuck to the fly and a little plump 9" WBT was landed.

After a couple more attacks that I failed to contact with I did hook another that somersaulted off the hook. One f the problems with small trout, especially if there are two or more in a pool is the eagerness to grab food before the others get to it. This means the come at things too quickly and often miss, but look like they've taken the fly. With the sporadic hatches we've had so far this year this problem gets exaggerated. A bit of settled weather and a decent hatch life will be a lot easier.