It's Been a Funny Old Season!

Well that was a quick season for me! I managed to get out quite a bit as I slowly built up my fitness. When I did get out it was strange especially with the hot weather in June/July/August. Those especially hot days resulted in very few insects coming off, even into the evenings which were still hot, I recon that the hatches probably happened during the dark hours. I still managed to catch when I went fishing catching excellent stocked fish which Matthew had procured. I also caught quite a lot of wild brownies and some lovely small wild rainbows.

I went to a Bamboo and Silk day on the Cressbrook and Litton water on the Wye in August. A well attended really good day, plenty of very different bamboo rods were cast especially a Bernard Ramanauskas rod which had a perfect action also a lovely Winston rod too with nearly as good an action as the former. I took my 7'9" #4 and 7'10" #5 along and had a fish with the #4 weight late on and took a few browns and rainbows. Altogether a great day which I hope will be repeated next season.

7'9" #4 John French built on a PHY taper with Schukken reel and Phoenix silk line.

7'10' #5 John French built on modified PHY taper with Hardy Perfect and Phoenix silk line

Following my earlier post about my 1st visit, for my 2nd visit I had a good afternoon with Derek and Bill. I used my #5 weight bamboo rod with my Hardy Cascapedia with a Hardy WF5. This works the rod really well, probably better that the DT5. I landed a few fish up to about 2lb and the rod handled them excellently.

The 3 amigos!

Lynn bought me a automatic inflatable life saver as she was a bit nervous about me venturing out alone. I was a bit dubious at first but a couple of reports in the press about some people drowning whilst fishing so that swayed me to wear it!

A "poacher" below Max's Bench Pool!!!

As the hot weather continued the Derwent began to show it's bones, in all the years I have been fishing it I have never seen it so low. This situation continued until the rain came late on, some hope for the final few weeks.

As I said at the start "it's been a funny old season'!

So now onto the grayling, my first visit was last Thursday. I had been into Bakewell and visit that excellent emporium (The Flyfishing Shop Bakewell) for a natter with Peter. I was humming and haring whether to go and have an hour or two and Peter encouraged me to go. So at 1430 I got into the river below Baslow old bridge, I decided to use my Hardy Favourite 7' #2 with a #22 greenfly on. I managed a quick couple of grayling to this fly  then a few trout so decided to move lower down. I noticed a few small rises so worked my way up to them and hit on a small shoal of grayling. the next hour had me hooking loads of grayling from tiny 4 inchers to respectable 10 inchers eventually landing 8 taking my total to 10 grayling for just over an hour and a half and all on the same dry greenfly, RESULT!

So hopefully this sets the scene for the rest of the grayling season, watch this space.

N.B. Grayling Society meetings are held at The Rutland Hotel in Bakewell starting at 1930, admission £4.
October 24: Paul Procter
“Grayling - thoughts and tactics”.
November 28:  Alan Roe
Trotting for game and coarse fish, and including Wallis casting.
December 12: Stuart Crofts
“Put the Fly back into your Fly-fishing”.
January 23: Don Stazicker
“Riseforms, can you tell what they are eating?”
February 20: Paul and Sue Sissons
Fishing for Coho salmon on Kodiak Island, Alaska
March 20: Tim Jacklin
Conservation Officer (Midlands) for the Wild Trout Trust,
Information on the work the Wild Trout Trust are doing in Derbyshire