22nd June

This evening  I went down to the Willow pool around 7.30 pm, it was a lovely warm evening with a clear sky, a few fish were rising as I tackled up at the hut. Things looked good! Again I started with the grey olive parachute as it represents a small olive dun and there were a few about. Fish were rising everywhere but they were head and tailing however I soon contacted a lively rainbow which was landed. As I worked my way up the pool sedge, midge and duns started coming off with the occasional mayfly too, a real treat for both fisherman and fish. I landed a brown but I was coming to the conclusion that this was not the correct fly as several trout covered ignored my offering. I switched to a small brown sedge again and immediately took a lovely brown around 1.5 lbs followed quickly by a rainbow which flipped out of my hand and took the sedge with it! Both fish head and tailed to the sedge and it took all my willpower to delay the strike. How many times do I strike too soon, wait, wait, strike. It turned out that I only had the one brown sedge with me as I hadn't updated my flybox recently so on went a size 18 grey sedge. This too started working it's magic with the head and tailers plus a couple of splashy risers too. I finished around 9.30 as again the temperature dropped and so did the fish  but 8 fish for a couple of hours was a result for me. Before my next visit I must update my flybox as it's rusty spinner as well as sedge time too!

21st June

On Friday I had a few hours spare so just went over the road below Baslow old bridge from about 7.30 pm. I sat on the bench for a while to see if anything was rising and there were a few small dimples looking up to the right, small grayling I assumed. I had on a size 18 grey olive parachute as nothing of note was about. I also had my John French bamboo rod out for the first time this season. I covered the first dimple a few times but nothing came to my fly and as the fish was still showing I changed to a small b brown sedge and first cast hooked not a grayling but a lovely wild brownie about 10". I continued up and hooked and lost a couple more before landing another brownie about the same size as the first on the brown sedge.

I then went down to the pool below as I had spotted a few rises there too and floated the sedge downstream to a fish which eventually took but was soon off due to the downstream drift I suspect! I switched to the other bank and made my way up but nothing was showing until I reached the top where after prospecting with the sedge two more browns were landed. The temperature dropped around 8.30 and with it the fish stopped moving so I called it a day at 9 pm.