Monday 6th June - A Day of 2 Parts

I had the afternoon booked off work today and had arranged to meet Derek and David S at the works. Iy was a beautiful warm day with not a cloud in the sky, not ideal for flyfishing! We decided to go down to the willow pool where David got in Derek went back upstream and I  went down to the deer boom again as I was still after some shots of hatching mayflies. Although there were mayflies coming off the fish were still not switched onto them as numerous floated past fish who showed disdain for them, give them a few days and they will soon get the taste for them. I didn't get anything here so as it was way too hot for the fish decided to go upstream into the gulley as this pool is protected from the sun by trees and I had noticed a few fish showing. It was difficult going with only the odd fish showing consistently but to nothing obvious. A mayfly floated down and was taken so a switch to a 1-up-1-down mayfly resulted in a lively brownie being landed.  I worked my way up the pool quick briskly as there was little showing and I couldn't be arsed bothered to change to a nymph. I picked up another couple but 1 other came to hand.

In the evening I took David M as a guest and we decided to give the bottom stretch a go to see what was around. I could not believe how many mayfly spinners were about.

Mayfly Galore!

We went don to Max's bench pool and the one above and again only a few fish were showing. I had on a 1-up-1-down mayfly and raised a few fish but gave them a "long release"! Eventually I started to land a few as I worked up the pool but again the fish were not totally clued into them. After an hour we decided to go up to the cricket pitch and agin the air was full of mayfly plus a host of other spinners and general buzzing "machines". I pointed the various pools/runs out and David started below the cricket pitch, I noticed him take a couple of fish. Meanwhile I went down to the "stump" where an alder which had taken root last year was now growing away also a rather large rock was submerged in the run so something to be aware of. As I still had on my mayfly I covered a few fish but they didn't really show any interest so I switched to a small cdc "Gasparin Dun", another one shown to us during the winter by Dave Southall. Needles to say the first fish I covered with it had it and a lovely brown was landed. A fish had been rising to something right on the far side in an awkward place and I covered it several times with the various flies I had on to no avail, at least he wasn't put down. I noticed a few small duns on the water too and captured one for future id. It turned out to be a pale watery dun. 

pale watery dun.

The nearest I had was a small grey-olive parachute which went on and after a couple of casts the fish took it as everything came together however it wasn't to be as it took off and under something on the large rock and then continued downstream. Needless to say it was goodbye to him but I call these moral victories!

Unfortunately I didn't have any other flies like this so put on a size 20 yellow bodied emerger as I have had reasonable success in the past when you can't really make-out what they are taking. After a couple of passes "jaws", a large rainbow, put in an appearance and took. After a struggle he got his freedom without me getting him anywhere near close to me.  Another wild brownie came to hand to the emerger before I decided to start moving upstream as the light was beginning to go. I noticed a few fish taking the mayfly spinners caught in the surface film so switched to my old faithful again. I immediately started to hook up with some lovely wild browns as I made my way towards the cricket pitch. 

David had got to the top of the cricket pitch pool now and had been successful which is always good to hear for your guests. I followed him up again taking some more lovely wild browns plus a rather erratic blue rainbow.  It was interesting to note that all the brown trout were wild as they come and no stocked browns and only the 2 rainbows. I think the wild fish know that mayfly tastes good and are not afraid of them.  It always takes the fish a few days for all the fish to completely switch on to the mayfly. 

We ended the evening around 10 with fish still rising but the temperature beginning to drop. Getting or rather stumbling out of the river in the darkness was interesting!