Blawin a Hoolie

I had an opportunity to get out on the river today for a couple of hours and after yesterdays high water the river was running off nicely with a tinge of colour to it, just the way I like it,  however there was one thing that was off putting which was the wind, it was absolutely blawin a hoolie as we say in my country of birth......(very high gusting winds for those down south)

The whitecaps had whitecaps on top of them and to be honest it was very difficult to find a spot a bit sheltered from the fierce downstream wind, casting the fly-line was an absolute nightmare and I started to head downstream to a spot I knew hopefully where I could get a line out.

I came across a goose and her gosling, which I was surprised only to see one of, and no other geese around either.

tucked tight in behind mum as she swims to the far bank away from me.










I sat and watched to see if I could get a few other photographs of them both and she finally calmed down and allowed her gosling out onto the bank to have a play around by itself.

I got to where I thought would be the most feasible place to get a line out without the wind interfering too much, ans soon enough I had a fish on which I was more than happy with especially in these conditions.

The view upstream was getting worse and the wind had changed direction again,

Not very clear from the photograph but the top layer of water is actually heading back upstream with the strength of the wind.









I kept plugging away in the wind and shortly after capturing the first fish another came to the net, a better sized fish this time around and a lovely fight to the net with it doing somersaults clear of the water.

I was more than happy with the couple of fish from almost the same run slightly sheltered from the wind by the high bank. I seen that the water had started to colour up again and suspected that last night rain was now just reaching me as it was evident the river was on the rise once more, so a couple of casts which resulted in another small fish, and then I would call time.

3 trout for just under 2 hours on the river before the combination of the river rising and the wind got the better of me, and now as I sit at home looking out over the Dales the wind has almost gone and its turned out to be another lovely night.