A Hard Afternoon and a Dunking!

Is this a fishing hut or what?

Our fishing hut is finished now and a right ol' place it is! All mod cons and looks the part, many thanks especially to Matthew who did the lion's share of work on it and the rest of the team too, a great job!

Some neat roof work!

 I had arranged to meet Bill and Derek down at the hut for lunch today so that we could fish the mayfly. After a natter we started fishing in Max's bench pool, mayfly, yellow sally, yellow may dun and lots of other assorted fly were coming off in droves. The odd fish was rising which I suppose was to be expected as the sun was shining too. I started off with a mayfly nymph and had a few tugs as I worked my way upstream, maybe the fish are still wary of the mayfly as this usually happens and only the odd fish take them until the word gets around. A fish rose to a mayfly under the trees where I had started so I retraced my steps and put on my go-to mayfly, Phillip Whites's 1-up-1-down. I covered the fish and 1st pass it had it and a strike and a nice brown was landed. A 2nd fish had also risen as I had made my way down and I covered this and on the 2nd pass it too had it but it either missed the fly or I struck too soon! I continued up the pool and a couple more fish had a slash at the fly and appeared to take it but on striking there was nothing there. Maybe these fish are still a bit unsure as usually the take is very definite. The rises stopped even though the mayfly were still coming off so I switched back to a mayfly nymph and took another brown. As I was planning to fish this evening I only ended up fishing for an hour or so and returned to my car through the thick clouds of mayfly spinners.

In the evening I went down to the willow pool (again) and sure enough fish were rising but I could not tell to what, certainly not mayfly. This time I started at the top of the pool and worked my way down covering fish and getting nothing just enjoying myself  minding my own business when someone decided to get in at the tail of the pool and fish up! I could not believe it, talk about fishing etiquette, it was not as if they did not see me. Consequently once I reached a point of where I could have probably cast and hit him I decided that enough was enough and attempted to get out whereupon  I stumbled and fell in, SH!T or something similar! Needless to say that put the lid on my evenings fishing, thanks whoever you are.  I know I don't own the river but when someone is fishing a pool you don't just get in with them unless invited or am I being too touchy? Rant over now.

Another Good Day

I arranged to meet Derek at the cricket pitch this afternoon, it was very warm with bright sun, maybe too sunny? Anyway I was a bit late and Derek had got in above the new (old) hut and was working his way upstream. After a brief chat I tackled upend went down to the cricket pitch. It was very odd as there were no fish rising nor were there any flies hatching! I had put on a grey olive klink but nothing showed any interest so I switched to a nymph. Only one half hearted tug was all that I got in the whole of the pool. So off to Bar Brook I went, the odd fish was rising but nothing consistent so I covered a rise with an olive paradun and a take! A blue rainbow was landed but that was it for the afternoon, I gave up soon after 4 as it was obviously too hot and sunny for the fish and me!

In the evening I went down to the works and got in at the sycamore pool, there were loads of fly about just like last evening, gnats, a few duns and spinners including a couple of mayflies! I had on an olive link and eventually a fish took and brown was landed. This continued as I worked my way up the pool with fish showing all around me, I switched to a griffiths gnat as the swarms of gnats around were amazing and started to take fish on this too. It was a lovely evening and although I only fished for 90 minutes I ended up with 5 browns and 3 rainbows.

1st Evening Session

After today's duties I decided to try the evening session to see whether there was anything happening. I went down to the willow pool and in the car park the only car was leaving, they said it had been "quiet" in the willow pool but it didn't put me off. I got down and put on a general grey olive parachute a couple of rises were covered but nothing showed an interest. There were loads of fly about from spinners and duns to masses of gnats. I managed to catch a few in my net and the spinners were not blue winged olives but slightly bigger and a brown olive colour. I put on an olive paradun and immediately a brown was landed. Another couple of misses and then a rainbow came in. The amount of fly about this evening was amazing, looking downstream what I thought was a mist turned out to be masses of gnats. I switched to a black gnat and again after covering a few fish another couple of browns came to hand. A few fish were head and tailing which to me means they were taking spinners and the only thing I had closely resembling was a pheasant tail body and a pale hackle. I tried off the bottom hackle so it would sit right on the film and luckily a fish took it and a brown was landed. The light was falling now and I could just make out the light hackle on the fly as another final brown took and was landed. I called it a day at 2130 as the light also called time, a really good evening with many more to come.