Bank Holiday Monday

The day dawned lovely and bright but soon clouded over, not quite as cold as yesterday though. Adam fancied a day so we went down to the bottom end after lunch. There were a few olives hatching in the polls above and below the luncheon hut.

 Adam took the lower pool whilst I tried the top pool. Nothing was showing so I had a dark olive fsn on, after a few minutes this picked up a decent out of season grayling followed swiftly by a second from the same spot therefore I decided to move upstream in case there was a shoal there. Nothing else happened so I went down to the pool where Adam was, he had had a couple of browns to a fsn and was now fishing the tail, I notice a few rises under the trees at the head so on went a size 16 grey olive link. This was hit on the first cast but the fish decided not to continue to take hold! The next cast also produced a take and an exquisite wild rainbow of about 14" was landed, it was perfect with the tell tale white edges to the fins and covered all over in spots. I was trying to get a shot handing my camera to Adam but the fish flipped and was gone. After a few more casts and with the fish still rising I landed a lovely brown. Adam was miffed so he had a flick in the run and after a couple of half hearted takes he landed a lovely grayling around 14" too. This little run contained plenty of fish. We retreated for lunch and Adam noticed some fish rising opposite so made a bee line for them and landed a couple more browns.

We decided to go further down as the river is more enclosed by trees so I thought it may provide some shelter from the wind. Adam took the top of Max's bench pool whilst I took the bottom. I noticed Adam land a couple of browns to a dry adams whilst he worked his way down, I didn't touch anything. As we were getting out I noticed my first mayfly of the year! I also noticed another large olive, not much smaller than a mayfly and recon this was an olive upright. We then went down to the very bottom of the stretch, Adam took the last pool and I took the next one up. A few fish were showing and I still had my grey olive klink on and each time I covered the rising fish they came up for it. Two stayed stuck and were landed including this brown who was after a selfie!

 Around 1730 the sun came out and there were loads of midges buzzing about and fish again were rising in the run on the far side. Casting was difficult so a roll cast managed to get the fly across. The fish found the same fly tasty and a couple more browns were landed. Then a few spinners started buzzing about, much larger than bwo so maybe the spinner of ldo or olive uprights, who knows?  I put on my rusty spinner and was pleased with my cast right over a riser and up it came but I was too eager and the fly pinged off! What surprised me was that a fish continued to rise in the same position so was that the same fish or had another snaffled his spot? Anyway that one wasn't interested in my rusty nor was any of the others so on went the grey olive again and again I landed another couple of browns. Adam wandered up and he had also landed 3 or 4 trout too. By now it was around 7 so we called it a day after landing around 12 fish a piece. Happy times!

On my way back I spotted this dandelion and so gave my macro lens a closeup test, all other photos also taken with the same lens too.