Weekend Fishing

Saturday 5th June

Roger (Derwentflyfisher) invited me and Louis onto Derwent Flyfishers stretch, we fished just above Hathersage. Met Louis at 1030 and went down to the river, after a chat we started fishing about 11, I went downstream of the stepping stones, some fish were rising but nothing constantly. On my second cast I caught this lovely wild brown on a general olive imitation as I could not make out what the fish were rising too.

This was followed by a decent grayling of about 1.5lbs. I worked my way back up to the hut and on the way took another brown. I noticed a small rise on the far bank, a fish rising about 6" from a log. I changed flies a few times before it took a size 22 yellow parachute. It resulted in another grayling this time pushing 1.5-2lbs.

After a superb lunch provided by Mrs S, Roger and I moved upstream to leave Louis chasing the rises by the hut. The odd mayfly put in an appearance but only the odd fish took them. I covered 1 with a mayfly emerger from the  Staziker stable and immediatley hooked up with another wild brownie. I notice Roger, a devout dry fly man, being seduced by the nymphette known as olive. Here is living proof!

After a long walk upstream Roger landed a good rainbow about 2lbs, it would be interesting to know where it had come from, down from Ladybower or up from the hatchery in Hathersage. We ended up about 1700 back at the hut and following a refreshement fished the last 30 mins by the hut. A truly enjoyable day!

Sunday 6th June

Follwoing torrential rain overnight and on through the morning I had decided not to bother today however Mrs P decided she wanted some holiday gear so after lunch with the rain stopped and some sunny spells I didn't need to think twice so headed for the sycamore pool and the run above. The river had risen a couple of inches and was slightly coloured at 1330. Mayfly were hatching with some olives and fish were taking both. I started with a 1-up 1-down mayfly and immediately took a good rainbow. This was followed by a couple of misses. I moved upstream and again took another good rainbow to a mayfly emerger. I tried some of my own pattern mayflies, a couple on a size 12 klinkhammer hook tied emerger style which 1 took a brown and some missed the 2nd one a failure! By now 1500 ish the river was colouring up and the bottom was on;ly visibly from just below knee depth. I was working my way upstream and took another brown on a size 12 prarchute mayfly emerger, another of my own patterns with flavours of several other persons patterns thrown in.

Matthew the keeper came down and we were chatting in general, I told him I had had a few wild browns on Friday between the bridges and he remarked that another member had taken what they thought was a salmon parr. I also said that one of the "browns" I caught on Friday looked suspiciously like a salmon parr too. It had the tell-tale barring down its flanks, spots were few and far between. At first I couldn't decide what it was. Could salmon get this far up the Derwent, who knows?