Deflation & Jubilation

We had decided today was going to be the better day to visit the Annual Yorkshire Game Fair taking place a short distance down the road from us in Newby Hall, It has been 2 year since our last visit and the wife & myself were looking forward to a good day out.
After yesterdays torrential rain we knew it was going to be a bit of a quagmire so dressed accordingly. We arrived bright and early to beat the traffic jams and went into the show which to be fair was as expected with mud & water, as I said to the wife makes you think back to our younger days of camping in Germany in the Harz Mountains after a downpour, which brought a smile to both our faces.

We made our way through the mud to the main arena where we were greeted with music of the gods to a Scotsman like myself.......

The City of York Pipe Band, and very good they were too, all be it they are Yorkshire folk!









We had a walk around all the trade stands and through the show events, looking at the various animals on show where the wife seen a dog she fell in love with,  the Sussex Spaniel breed.

Nothing unusual there some may think but anyone who knows my wife she is not a dog person at all and shuns away from them but I have to say it was a pleasure to see here with the dogs enjoying them.....There is hope I will have a dog in this house yet!

We covered the full show and not a single sign of any angling stands or displays which according to the show organisers there was meant to be a casting arena & places to top up your tackle......Not where I could see,  so spoke with one of the organisers and sure enough not a single fishing exhibitor or stand! Poor show indeed which left me very deflated as that was one of the reasons for attending.

One attraction we always enjoy is the Falconry & Owls which again this year were well represented.

I had arranged to meet a Yorkshireman at the show who I wont embarrass.....Martin Smith come on down!, and after a few texts telling him what the conditions were like, and a reply of my shiny new white trainers and the wife wearing her flip flops, all went quiet and not a single sign of them all day till after we had left the event where upon a text asking if I had a whippet with me, imagine calling my wife a dog!

Sorry we never got to meet up buddy and I'm sure your footwear will be fine all be it it caked in straw & mud & yes I know you weren't wearing trainers your boss told me.

With the rivers all up around the 1m mark after the torrential rain on Friday & Saturday I knew it would be hit & miss but I couldn't sit around all afternoon with the sun shining so threw the gear in the car  and headed off for an hour even if only for a walk along the bank.

These were the conditions on arriving at the river, well up and very coloured but with plenty of fly life hatching off I seen one or two fish rising, so the gear got set up.







Looking downstream as I crossed over the footbridge to reach the area of the rises.

As I walked up through the grassland it was lovely to smell the array of wild flowers out in the afternoon sun.

After sitting around in the area of where I had seen the rises and watching a couple of yellow wagtails jump from branch to branch for sometime, a few small tentative rises started appearing quite frequently so covered one and first cast down plop up it came and sucked the small dry I had on, not the biggest fish in the world by any standards but a fish I was pleased to see in the conditions which were in front of me.

miniature perfection

after around a 20 minutes wait to see if another fish would rise, another obliged and again on the first pass it took it, slightly bigger than the first but not by much.

After that the rises disappeared but I wasn't too fussed, it was a lovely afternoon and it was great just to be on the riverbank watching the wildlife around me and I felt quite jubilant that 2 fish had obliged in the conditions, so set off back downstream heading for the car were I stumbled across 4 old soldiers, I wonder which one is the oldest.......Answers on a postcard only please!

Crossing back across the bridge I seen another rise so dropped down onto the bank where after covering the fish twice up it came and sucked down the small dry.

The biggest of the day and again wont break any records but all wild fish and that makes me just as happy. All in all not a bad couple of hours on a swollen river.