Sunday 21 July 2013

Oh Deer Oh Deer

Being on Emergency Engineer this week I thought I might have to put the fishing on hold but after no calls up till before bed last night I thought I'd take a chance & get up early O'clock and get a few hours fishing in, so 3am the alarm went off, the wife said to me are you away as she moved over onto my side of the bed, so that was it decided, no going back to bed, I was going fishing.

There was an eerie silence this morning as I parked the car, nothing seemed to be moving, no regular welcoming party and only an owl hooting far off in the distance. It wasn't till I was half way down the field that the Curlew flew over my head screeching out its call as if to welcome me back.

I sat and watched while it got a little bit lighter and no movement of any fish at all so opted for a weighted nymph with a spider as the dropper and it didn't take long till I had my first & second fish, a double hookup!





Only small fish but the first double hookup I've had a  few years.







As I moved on up through the shallow runs a few small fish came to the spider and  to the nymph, these probably being the largest of the bunch.

 


Nothing of any size at all, the larger trout and the grayling seem to have done a disappearing act all together, all that could be tempted were smaller fish, there was no fish rising at all and the only one catching fish of size in relation to itself was the kingfisher I sat and watched working his patch of river.




I was crouching down whilst fishing a clear stream when 2 deer came from the woods no more than 50m in front of me and started coming straight towards me, I sat perfectly still and the wind was blowing from them to me, they approached and then started drinking from the river.

 I sat there until my knees could take no more and I had to move so as I was taking the camera slowly out the waterproof pouch they sensed something was wrong and one took to its heels and ran while the other just watched me.


You can see the running deer to the right of the picture heading back into the woods while the other is still focussed on me.

The first bit of fly life started to appear on the river so I was hoping a rise might follow but nothing, there was flies coming off but no fish moving for them at all














I moved on up the river and only connected with a few other smaller fish, and as I was walking up the side of a field to get to the next deeper water I saw something in the distance which at first I though was a pheasant and it was until I had crept closer that I seen that it was another deer lying down in the grass.


As I got closer he stood up and moved out into the field but turned to face off with me, he stood there for what seemed an eternity before finally taking to his heels and disappearing back into the copse behind him.














I only caught another couple of small fish again before deciding to call it a morning and started heading back downstream and started taking some photographs of the fauna as I went. I'm still amazed at the beauty of some wild flowers that frequent our riverbanks.















Allcock & Mint
Every now and again as the wind changed direction did I get the aroma of the wild mint


So that was it the morning over, no fish to speak of apart from about a dozen small wild fish which I will take any day over one stocked fish. I never seen another soul and the wildlife was a pleasure to watch, my morning was content till the telephone went off and I got an emergency call for Morpeth, so headed home to get going, back to reality.

8 comments:

  1. Man, you are one keen fisherman!

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  2. Only get out 1 day a week mate so got to grab it & make the most of it. :)

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  3. I fished probably the same stretch (begins with an E?) on Sunday afternoon/evening and found the going extremely tough, finishing with 3 small brownies. I decided to take my trotting rod along as an experiment and found very little interest in this method despite fishing some of the troutiest runs imaginable. Overall there was very little rising apart from tiddlers despite there being a fair few flies on the water. A good flush through is required I think.

    Regards

    Dave

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    1. They just were not interested Dave at all, you were probably on the same stretch, I finished around 1pm and never seen a person in all my time, unfortunately that will be my last for a while up there as am off into hospital next week for a knee op.

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  4. Hope the op goes well and you're back on the banks soon. You need strong knees to climb those barbed wire fences on that stretch. It's quite a challenge to get from one end to the other :)

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  5. Can't be the same then Dave as there is no wire fences on the stretch I fish, there is a pathway the full length of the stretch which is unobstructed,

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  6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    Replies
    1. Dave dont park that far down, no need to when I can park in the middle and fish up or down, which preferably for me is more up than down, not much decent water down the bottom in my personal opinion. Drop me an email & I will send you all the details of parking etc

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