Friday 3 May 2019

April

I went out on day 1 down to the bottom end at Max's bench pool. Although nothing was rising a dark olive fox squirrel nymph proved the downfall for a couple of rainbows. I worked my way up the pool and took a couple of browns to the dark olive fsn too. I called it a day after reaching the top of the pool so not a bad opener!
The following day I went down to the willow pool and after losing a couple called it a "cold" day with a blank.
A couple of trips to the cricket pitch and things began to look up with numerous fish taking a standard fsn and as some fish were rising also on the dry, a deer hair emerger and grey sedge. Flylife was beginning to emerge, large dark olives and grannom were buzzing about.
A second visit to the bottom end again produced some lovely rainbows both to dry and nymph, the usual suspects fsn and grey sedge. As I have said before it never ceases to amaze me the quality of the fish and the fact that the overwintered fish were in impeccable condition. The Derwent had started off crystal clear, the pre-season peaty tinge had gone, it is a long time since I have seen it so clear.
A flood midway through the month coloured the river for a few days and was unfishable however once the level returned to normal again it was clear.
A lovely warm afternoon below the cricket pitch saw plenty of fly about LDOs and grannom again which resulted in 5 browns and 3 rainbows, 6 of them came to a dry, the grey sedge and black klink doing the damage. On my way out of the pool I noticed a very large hawthorne fly dead on the surface, note to self for next visit.
My final visit of April was to the sycamore pool, lots of fish were "smutting" and due the clarity of the water I could spot individual fish coming for the smuts/greenfly on the surface and taking something just under the surface film. I noticed a few hawthorne flies about before I started so on went my interpretation and immediately I took 4 rainbows in quick succession. I thought I had cracked it but alas other fish I covered didn't want to know so I switched to a greenfly and had a couple of offers but they never became "attached". After switching to a small black cdc a couple of browns were landed successfully.
So not a bad month for starters, roll on May!

No comments: