9th June

Today I took a guest, Dave,  and so went down to Beeley again as this part of the river is beautiful, that's not saying the rest isn't!

We started in the pool above the hut using mayfly nymphs, Dave up the left side me crossing to the far bank. I soon contacted a fish which fought well initially but to my surprise it turnout to be a superb PERCH around 15" long. The nymph was well back in its mouth so it definitely wanted it. I have caught perch before in a few other pools but never thought there would be any here. Within a few more casts I landed a superb rainbow around 2 1/2lbs. Dave had switched to a dry as a few mayfly were coming off plus a few spinners were about too. He missed a good take to the dry, too eager! We only fished for about an hour here before adjourning for lunch giving the mayfly time to get active.

After lunch I thought that we would have a repeat of last Monday and fish the same pool. I gave Dave a few mayfly nymphs and duns to try. I led the way and Dave fished the fast water at the tail whilst I made my way upstream. I noticed him landing a few fish, great! I am always anxious that my guests land fish but now Dave was well into it. I persisted with the nymph and a brown was landed but the mayfly by now had started to hatch quite a lot so on went the "usual".  I proceeded up the pool to the cattle drink landing several browns losing even more! Again I reached the stepping stones and noticed a fish rising in the same place a last Monday. Again I covered it a couple of times before getting a drag free drift and up it came, a lovely brown which again had me all over the pool. 

 Notice anything about the above fish and the one from Monday? I think they are the  same fish going by the markings around the gill covers. I was about 4pm by now and the amount of mayfly duns and spinners plus sedge, and sherry type spinners was a treat to see. Needless to say at 4.15pm the heavens opened and for about 30 mins torrential rain ensued. Maybe the flies knew what was coming. We sheltered under a tree and watched the mayfly still hatching and the odd fish taking them even though the surface was pocked by all the rain. A few casts after the rain and another brown was taken but the temperature had dropped and you could see your breath, this resulted in a lack of fly and the fish went down too. I ended the day with 2 rainbows 6 browns and 1 perch. Dave had a better afternoon landing a dozen fish.