Today has been a long time coming following my triple heart bypass in March! Don kindly offered to accompany me on this visit as I felt a bit nervous about wading however I needn't have been as it was a "doddle"!
I met Don down at the bottom hut around 12 and after a brief chat and one of Mr Hancock's pork pies we set off. We started in the pool below the bend and it felt strange to be out for me first trip with the season almost half way through. There were still plenty of mayfly spinners about with the odd dun hatching but unfortunately rises were quite absent possibly due to the bright sun. As I worked my way upstream it felt good to be on the river and suddenly I was into a fish, a rainbow of about 1½lb to a mayfly nymph. Don was also taking fish to the dry and nymph.
Matthew arrived and after a long chat about the river, crayfish, insects etc. we made our way down to the next pool down. The small run just above usually produces some lovely small wild browns but not this time babe due to the river being exceptionally low. I put Don in the run-in and he was soon into fish, myself I struggled to get a knock so switched to a Phil White 1-up-1-down mayfly dun, this mayfly is my go to fly when the mayfly are about, I do not fish with any other dun pattern. Soon I was into a lovely brown soon followed by a second. Mayflies were everywhere together with plenty of small dance flies, some sedges, blue winged olives and yellow may duns. I have still to see a fish take one of the latter!
Derek came up about 4'ish but had completely missed us so was further downstream any it was a good time to break for a cup of tea. We spent a good hour chatting the 3 of us before Derek departed. Don and I went down to Max's bench pool but there was someone in there so we got in above and proceeded upstream. This is Derek's favourite pool too and it was not long before we started to connect with fish using the mayfly dun. We both had some lovely wild browns topped off by some in the 2-3lb class with spade like tails. We made our way back to the pool below the hut arriving around 8 to a mass of mayfly, two, yellow may dun plus unrecognised (so far) spinners, it was a magnificent sight. We spent the last couple of hours covering rising fish with the PW's mayfly dun which also does a good representation of a spinner taking fish a losing some!
We ended around 2145 Don taking well in the teens of fish, me finishing with 9 landed. It was good to get back on the river again and many thanks to Don for his support.
Roll on my next visit!
