First Cuckoo & a Few Fish.

This morning I awoke at the usual time but today was different than the rest, there was no work to go to as I'm having a sabbatical, and having a few weeks me time after being made redundant yesterday. With the chores done around the house by 0830 I was off fishing just after.

As I drove down into where I leave my car I noticed the  array of travellers carts,caravans,buses, lorries and horses all crammed into the space they call a lay-by by the side of the road, all heading to the Appleby horse fair, the next few weeks up in the Dales will be hell with them going then returning from the fair, I'm not in anyway bias but they do leave some amount of mess & rubbish in their wake.

I chose to walk further downstream than normal before setting up to get a bit of peace and quiet.

As I walked down through the wood it was great to see a couple of deer rise from their resting positions and run up the wood, definitely nobody had been through here this morning.








Out of earshot and sight I started setting up and listening to the sounds of the wood and it was great to hear my first cuckoo this year, really going for it too which was great to sit & listen to.

I opted to start at the first big corner pool so sat from a vantage point just to the side of the wood looking for any surface movement.

It didn't take too long till I seen my first fish rise so sat for a few moments longer to see if it would be a continual riser and it was so climbed into a position where I could cover it and within 4 casts had the fish on.

a nice start to the morning

As I passed down through the wood, the cuckoo was still going at it, and the abundance of white flowers everywhere looked like it had been snowing they were literally everywhere.

I sat and listened to the cuckoo whilst watching another set of runs and a fish that I genuinely thought was a smutting Grayling, It kept smutting as I eased into the river then stopped, I decided to continue casting over it to see if I could entice it up again and after about 6 minutes of covering it I was about to reel in and move on when up it came and took my dropper.

Not a Grayling as I had first though but another trout.










As I turned around to head downstream a tree caught my eye which stood out from all the rest and looked really quite nice in the morning glow.

A fir tree with all new corns forming and the photograph doesn't do it justice as it looked quite spectacular in colour amongst all the other trees.

A close up of the forming corns that were covering it.










As the morning wore on I took another couple of fish.

Then the kids appeared! Hey Mister caught anything, which I replied I had and they ran off, 5 minutes later returning with big brother, father, uncle and grandad all tagging along asking what I had caught how I had caught them and would I catch them some fish for breakfast....After  informing them they were on private land, making my excuses to not catch them breakfast  I crossed over saying I wanted peace & quiet they finally wandered away.

I sat & had lunch under a big old oak tree that I like to sit under when fishing that part of the river as you can peer through the branches and watch the ducks with their ducklings without disturbing them and observe the kingfishers and wrens that dart around this part of the river, always nice to see.

I made my way back to where I had started off this morning and sat and watched a couple of trout rise as the duns drifted down the river and sure enough they were slurping them down so with a change of flies eased myself out and started to cover them.

Nothing big but always nice to see then disaster struck.......I dropped the camera in the river! Ah well that's camera number two I've dropped in the last few years at least this one got a good innings, so it looks like I will be shopping at Argos tomorrow morning for a replacement.
I stayed another hour or so on the river before calling it a day with a total of 9 fish. I was just hoping the SD card would be OK, which thankfully as you can see it survived the drink I gave it earlier.