Fly then Float

Awoke this morning at 3am due to the mrs having a restless night and couldnt get back to sleep so decided to throw the fly rod and my trotting rod in the car and head off to the Tees. Arrived on the river around 3.30am just as the day was breaking and seeing as I hadnt brought any bait decided to start with the fly. Day break was as always a special moment to be on the river with nobody around but the birds and their morning song...truly excellent.

After about 50 minutes managed to hook into this little grayling but apart from that there was no fish moving at all.

I had a look around under the rocks where I was fishing to see if I could find any gadgers and the place was heaving with them so had a stroll back to the car, dismantled the fly rod and set up the trotting rod with my trusty fluted 5bb float and headed back to the river to collect some bait. About 15 minutes later I had enough bait to last a couple of hours so set about going back to basics and fishing the gadger a bait which I havent fished since being in scotland as a kid.

The morning wore on and the trout started falling to my tactics and by the time I decided to call it a day at 1030am I had accounted for 18 trout all to the gadger, some only par but others relatively good fish. A few pics of the better fish.