Last Week

I'm a bit late filing this but last week was a disaster fishing wise. I had booked the week off as went to France with some friends for a long weekend and had planned to fish on Wed-Fri. Unfortunately the rain came on Tuesday night and the river came up about 18" and was the colour of bad coffee hence no fishing. I did attempt a few hours on Friday arranging to meet Derek at the cricket pitch, the river looked fishable in Baslow earlier in the morning but really down in the park the river was definitely so-so. So much so Derek didn't even tackle up which is saying something. I went up through the cricket pitch pool with a dry LDO and snaffled a brown of 10" but nothing else. There was a good hatch too of LDOs and also some paler olives of the same size. I also trapped a larger fly and went through my reference books on return home and reckon it's a large brook dun. The photo doesn't do it justice as the wings were more mottled than here.

 

 

 

I then went up to the deer boom which is above where Bar Brook enters the river and it was definitely clearer above as the brook was pouring out a real chocolaty mess, no wonder it was coloured further down. It also transpired that Derek had gone above the works and the river was clearer again as there is another brook below the works which was also feeding in some mucky water too.

 

I winkled out another brown from the deer boom area to a dark olive fsn as there was nothing rising and the hatch had more or less petered out. I went down to bar brook and fished the edge where the mucky water met the clearer water again with the fsn and got another 2 small browns. Not bad I suppose but not the afternoon I was expecting as the coloured water definitely put the fish down as the hatch around the cricket pitch was certainly tempting for the fish but not enough!

 



On the Thursday it was the anniversary of the Dambusters raids and I was pottering about in my garage when I heard a rumbling in the distance then realised it was a Lancaster. I dashed outside to see the plane above the house towards Baslow Edge a fantastic sight! It was followed closely by a Spitfire or Hurricane. I watched as it circled Chatsworth and came over my house again, I dashed to get the camera and it then circled for a 2nd time and these are a few shots I got. Unfortunately the best shot was before I got my camera as it banked right overhead however these aren't too bad!

The First Evening Rise?

NOT!!!!!
I decided to have an hour after work as it had been a glorious day on Tuesday with the temperature in the low 20's so I eagerly made my way down to the willow pool. Unfortunately the fish were not coming out to play. No rises and not much buzzing about, the odd midge, olive and sedge only. I had started with a LDO just to try and tempt something but nothing then a grey-olive parachute but still nothing came to investigate. I briefly went downstream to the next pool but only a few small grayling or trout showed a lacklustre interest in my fly but nothing connected. I went back up to the willow pool and tried a fox squirrel nymph and landed a decent rainbor around 2.5lbs. I called it a day at 7 after just over an hour, the temperature had dropped too much. Still it was good to get out and wet a line. Looking forward to a week off next week so should get some visits in! Lovely.