Sunday 20 October 2013

Retropective of this year.

I did have plans to get out onto the rivers this weekend with the fly rod but Friday nights heavy rain put paid to that, so yesterday I bought some bait & had planned to do a bit of trotting but again the heavy rain last night put that off as I looked at the water this morning and it was in spate, and rising so after a slip back into bed for another hour and a relaxing day I thought I would reflect on my trout season this year.

I have to say this season's Brown trout season got off to a bit of a slow start with constant catches of Grayling but then after a trip up the Dale and hooking into this beauty things took a turn for the better.






 Not the 1st trout of the season but the second, what a way to finally get the season off & started






This season I concentrated on my spider fishing and virtually took all other flies out my jacket apart from the nymphs and the spiders, something I wanted to concentrate more on which was the upstream spider fishing and I have to say it did pay dividends, I managed to capture not one personal best but two personal bests this season for oddly enough species that should never have been in the river in the first place, the first one being this River caught Rainbow Trout, not my biggest rainbow trout but certainly a new personal best river rainbow, and in immaculate condition, so obviously had been in the river for some time as there was no sign of any  fin damage or anything that would link it back to a stocked fish.


The 2nd being this river caught Blue trout, which I firstly mistook as a sea trout when I saw how fast it ripped the line off the reel once hooked, I have to say it gave a great fight like the ones found in stillwaters but right or wrong it shouldn't have been there, and like the rainbow was taken for the pot, something I haven't done in a very long time.

Looking back on the year and reading through my diary one thing that jumps out at me more so this year is the condition of the fish.
I try & fish in places which have not been stocked and this year done just that fishing in places where the clubs I belong to have not stocked & the condition of the wild trout I have caught have been impressive, seeing as most come from typical northern freestone rivers.
















Another thing which has caught my eye this year is the abundance of natural flowers adorning the banks, I was stunned at the sheer beauty of some.


I have to say this year although slow to start and being out the game for 10 weeks with my knee operation, I really cant complain as the spiders and dries have produced the goods for me this season and if I have other seasons in the future like this one just finished then you certainly wont hear me complain.

5 comments:

  1. Hello George

    Having read your blog (and thoroughly enjoyed it) for most of the season it would appear that you've had an excellent success rate, despite the really cold start to the season, with some cracking early season successes.

    My first dedicated season fly fishing the rivers has been a testing affair with no real stand out days. However, I have managed a first in catching the odd trout on nymphs and wet flies. My next challenge is to catch a grayling on a nymph in the Autumn/Winter. Above all it's been an enjoyable season not catching much and made a change from chucking out a feeder and waiting. It's also been fun trying to crack the DBTAA code and finding where to fish :).

    Tight lines for the Grayling season.

    PS Have you ever fished your local beck with a nymph. I've had plenty of grayling out in the winter on bait and have always wondered whether a fly would be worth a go.

    Regards

    Dave

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  2. Hi Dave thanks for coming to the blog and reading my ramblings all year....lol, I have fly fished the beck but its very much hit or miss, In summer its too weedy and in winter with nymphs you do get a few, I tend the fish it when the rivers are unfishable but its only a shadow of its former self used to be loaded with fish but after the pollution incident its not what it used to be, lots of smaller fish which the EA put in when they restocked.

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  3. Hello George

    I didn't realise that there had been a pollution incident. What a shame.
    Like you I only fish it when it's cold and found that last winter there was nowhere near the numbers of grayling of previous years. You could easily catch 15 of these in a couple of hours. This was offset slightly by the large numbers of dace and chublets from one particular swim about halfway along the length that I'd never seen in this stretch before.
    I think I'll still have the odd visit and if the grayling have returned may have a bash on the nymph.

    Regards

    Dave

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  4. I usually fish it once or twice, mostly down the bottom as there are a few good runs down there then coming up to the Harbour Wall is also good, above the weir is almost dead I've heard due to the pollution incident apparently they manage to contain most of it at the top of the harbour weir but I dont know if this is totally true or not. The dredging last year didn't help much either :(

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  5. I always have a few casts in the weir pool (harbour?) after setting up, but have never had a bite from here as I find it difficult to find the right line to trot down. The stretch above the weir does seems devoid of any fish life. I had a few casts in the swim by the road bridge last winter with great anticipation but after half an hour didn't manage a single bite. Still, it's a nice place to spend a few hours, even in the worst conditions.

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