June Forays

9th June
As I worked from home today I decided that I would get onto the river around 5. There was a very heavy shower in the afternoon and I was a bit dubious as to the state of the river. In the end I went down to the works but Rymans brook was well up, filthy dirty and thundering through so it wasn't looking too good. I went down to the willow pool but unfortunately it was far too dirty. Above the brook the river didn't, look too bad so I went above the sycamore. Visibility was ok to knee depth but as I was there I decide to give it half an hour. After a few fruitless searches I noticed a rise below some trees and after a pass or two the fish took my grey-olive parachute and a decent brown was landed. There then followed a series of rises under the same tree, a couple of rash strikes before a rainbow was also landed.

15th June
Today my son Adam came fishing too. The river was running clear and we started down by the willow pool, Adam got in at the bottom of the pool and immediately missed a good fish. He persevered and was rewarded with a good rainbow. I started at the pool head and got a brown. Both fish taken of mayfly as a few were still hatching. Not much was rising so we decided to go down to the deer boom. Adam went down to Bar brook where a few fish were showing, he managed to land a couple more browns to the mayfly. I rose and landed a few browns again to the mayfly before going down below Adam, where I fished from the high bank which enabled me to cover some rises on the far bank with the mayfly again landing a rainbow and a few more browns. We ended the day with Adam getting 3 browns and me 7 browns and a rainbow.

18th June
This evening was a lesson in watching the drag! Again I went down to the willow pool for the last couple of hours and started at the tail of the pool. I covered a couple of fish with my grey-olive parachute but it was refused. I left them and continued up the pool where another fish was rising, I was now below the fish whereas before I was more square on to the fish, the fish came up after a couple of passes, you know when you get the cast right as it just looks right. I continued as far as I could get before the pool gets too deep and took another brown. As I was retracing my steps I noticed the fish I had previously covered were still rising, again I covered them from a square position but failed again as I noticed drag. I could not make the cast without drag so moved lower down so I was casting more up an across and blow me the first cast the fish took my fly and a good brown was landed again I just felt the cast was right! Even after the fish was landed a second fish was still rising so another couple of casts later again when I felt it all come together and the fish took and was subsequently landed, another lovely brown. This must have put the fish down as rises ceased so I called it a day after taking 4 fish and learning a lesson in drag free presentation!