Nymphing Magic

It may have been fate but whatever it was I was thankful for it.

I had all intensions of fishing the River Tees today as I drove back down swaledale yesterday and the water was a real dark colour and was still a bit higher than normal after all the rain during the week so on looking at the Tees it was slightly clearer and in good condition. I set off after lunch and as soon as I got onto the A1 to head to the Tees I was caught in a 5 mile traffic queue and not going anywhere fast. It took me nearly 40 minutes to reach the turn off for the Swale so I just decided not to waste anymore time and fish the Swale instead.

On arrival it was still running very dark and up and nothing was moving so decided to give it a bash anyway and adopted heavy nymph tactics. After 20 minutes of casting in the moderate winds I found a run sheltered from the wind and started running the nymphs through, 1st run through I hooked into a small trout, all very welcome in these difficult conditions.

Another two small trout around this size followed this in quick succession from the same run. I moved down the run and cast again and hooked into this boy

By this stage I was very content that I had caught in these difficult conditions and had a break for 10 minutes where I watched the swallows dive bomb the river picking the insects off as they flew just above the water level.

I decided that I would go to the top of the run and make my way down again one last time before heading for home as the river was starting to rise and the wind was picking up, about half way down the run I saw the indicator stretch out before me and I struck, nothing happened for what seemed an eternity then all hell broke loose. This fish was staying deep and going like a rocket and soon had me almost down to the backing in the first couple of excursions down the river with me in tow trying to keep in touch with it.

After almost 20 minutes I managed to slip the net under it which was difficult as it was bigger than the net by some amount, I knew this was going to be my new Personal Best for the Swale.

A magnificient Brown trout 51cm long and weighing 3lbs 30z. On getting it onto the bank I went to unhook it and found that the hook had came out in the net, so I was very lucky indeed.

As I said at the start Im not sure if it was fate for me to be fishing on a rising river swale today but whatever it was Im very thankful and the best part of it was to watch the fish swim away after the weighing & photographs had been taken..Nothing could better that.