Mid April and May

 Mid April was still rather chilly consequently fly life was sporadic and so were the rising fish! The Derwent always takes it's time to get going, April being very slow. Although I only went a few times I did manage to catch fish each time.

The first week of May we were on holiday so by the time I got on the river temperatures had increased which brought out the flies but the fish were not exactly switched on. The third week and the evenings started to look promising, the first evening I went over the road between Baslow bridges. The amount of fly was spectacular, loads of olive upright spinners, gnats, a few sedge and a few mayfly. The mayfly were a bit smaller than those which appear early June, some people say these are one year flies as opposed to the usual two year ones. 

The masses of flylife (splodges!) 

Although the olive uprights were out, I had to trap a couple to take them home to double check. The males have dark brown upper bodies but greyish under bodies, whilst the females are bright yellow with greyish tails and legs with pale grey wings. The females dropped to the water for 2-3 seconds then took off again, occasionally a fish would manage to take one. I tied a few some with a brown rib over yellow superfine the others omitting the rib. Both have dun tails and hackle with a medium dun wing parachute style. My next outing was on 2nd June, over the road below the old bridge, to test the pattern and it came up trumps. The olive uprights were still out and a few fish were rising, the first 3 fish covered were hooked and landed, one being a rather chunky oos grayling. I finished after about and hour and a half with seven fish all to either the plain bodied or ribbed fly.

The female olive uprights showing the dark bands on the top and plain underneath.

 

  The male olive upright (minus tails!) showing the dark top and pale underneath.

Also on my last outing I noticed some slightly larger duns/spinners to the olive uprights but not as large as mayflies but with 3 tails, I could only catch this one and after some checking through my books couldn't decided on what it was. Does anybody know what this is?

                                                                        Minus a foreleg!

Finally for my outings below the old bridge I used my 5 weight Bakewell Flyfishing bamboo rod which performed flawless including suppressing a decent rainbow around 3lbs!

A New Season Begins

 Early April saw lots of showers and the Derwent came up and stayed there more or less, too high for fishing as I found out on the 4th when I went down to the bottom end. Although the river was up probably around 6-8 inches it was really pulling, so much so that when I got home I retrieved my life vest for future use. On checking the CO2 canister it expired in 2019! So a replacement kit was ordered and fitted.  

Back to the fishing, as it was cold there was little fly life about so I put a small black nymph with an indicator. After a few minutes a trout took the indicator! I let the fish decide whether to eat or let go but unfortunately it became foul hooked but I eventually managed to land a lovely brown but obviously it doesn't count. A few minutes later a rainbow again took the indicator and again I let it go without striking and fortunately it let go! I went down to the lower pool and crossing the river was tricky even though the river was only shin high. Up to this point I hadn't seen any rises although a few duns were trickling off.  After sitting and watching the various runs nothing showed therefore I called it a day.

Over the next few weeks the river was still up and very stained with peat, nothing like it was just prior to the season starting when it ran gin clear, very frustrating.

It was another 3 weeks until I got out again as I said above the river was too high, by the 25th it had dropped a bit and it was a lovely sunny day but a bit chilly for April with a downstream wind. I therefore decided to go above the works as it would be a bit more sheltered there.  I sat by the sycamore to see if there were any fish showing and low and behold there were a few showing on the far side but couldn't see to what. I tied on a size 18 all black klink as a starter and within a couple of casts I hooked up but only for a minute as a long distance release was achieved by what I think was a brown as it stayed deep. Another take soon followed and yet again a long distance deep release, the hook was checked and was ok! A third was hooked and again a long distance release, but this time the hook was broken, was this going to be one of those days? On went another size 18 klink and the fish were still rising in the run on the far side. The current was faster in the centre than in the run which made drag a real pain but eventually I got it right and a trout took, this time it stayed on and a lovely brown was landed, phew, a real beauty!

All the commotion put the other fish down so I started moving upstream even though no fish were showing, I even changed to a small black nymph which I managed to hook another brown but this came adrift too! Nothing else showed however the fish further down started rising again so I retreated downstream to do business. On went the same black klink and I continued to cover the risers, eventually it came right and another brown took and was successfully landed, the double (size wise) as the one above but still wearing its winter coat. I continued but the temperature was cruel and I had got chilled so sat on the bench for a while and just watched. I called it day a little later without going back in.

A good lesson I had learnt was the effect of drag even if it looked like none was there, micro drag. Fish which were covered wouldn't take yet a second or third cast when I knew it looked right and the fish took.