Friday 23rd February

Today was an odd day, we were eagerly awaiting the birth of our second grandchild so plans for a reunion of work colleagues was cancelled so to appease me Lynn suggested I go fishing. Needless to say I did not need prompting twice.

A raw day looking upstream from the cattle drink

It was a bitterly cold day although the sun was out and I knew that 2 hours would do me before I started to lose the feeling in my feet. I decided to go above the works again and get in at the cattle drink. The river was still up by about 8" and was running reasonably clear with just that peaty tinge. Naturally there was nothing hatching not even any midges so it was on with a fox squirrel nymph with a tungsten bead to get it down. I worked my way up but only landed an out of season brown which whilst it was quite thin was otherwise in exceptional condition with a large spade of a tail, in a few months time it will be in even better condition. Needless to say no grayling came to hand, maybe the higher than average water had moved them. By the time I reached the top of the pool I was quite chilled so a walk back to the cattle drink and a 5 minute warm was enough to get the feeling back in my feet. I got in again but went downstream for about 10 yards and started again but this time with a pink shrimp. After a couple of casts a lovely grayling was landed soon followed by a second from practically the same spot, could this be a shoal? Again after a few more casts a grayling was dropped off however immediately after two more were landed successfully. By the time I had got level with the entry point I had another out of season trout and the breeze had got up and I was cold so although I could have carried on I called it a day with four grayling landed in a couple of hours, a good day. Only a few days left of the season now when it will be closed for March then open on 1st April.