To Sleep or.....

Go fishing after nightshirt this morning, seeing as it was such a glorious morning and I'm not back on shift till tomorrow night the fishing won.
After getting home & grabbing some breakfast and a quick shower, the gear was put in the car and I decided to drive up the Dale and have a few hours fishing. I knew the river was going to be low as we have had no rain to speak of for sometime now and sure enough 0.12m on the scale. The sun was high, the sky virtually cloudless and it was hot.

After sitting in the shade of the trees and observing upstream I saw a few fish tentatively rise and suck flies from the surface film, apart from them the river was very much still and more like a lake in places.

I moved upstream and to the right and covered the first fish I had seen smutting at the surface and almost as the fly hit the water it sucked it under and fish hooked on the first cast.

Not a bad fish and on the first cast too.

The other fish had stopped rising so I retreat back into the shade of the trees to observe and it didn't take long till another started to rise so covered this fish and about 4 or 5 times casting over its head up it popped and sucked the fly down again.

Not as nice looking as the first fish with its deformed fin but a fish nevertheless, I wasn't complaining on such a hot day.

All went quiet after this so I wondered off downstream through the woods where I stumbled upon a mushroom ring, I've not come across one of these in a while now.

I'm very curious why its almost a complete circle of fungi.

 Some close ups.

I moved downstream and sat for a while watching but absolutely nothing was moving at all and the river was really low rolling over the solid rock bottom  and not a fish in sight.

 I headed back upstream towards where the other fish were rising an hour or so earlier to see if anything was moving again there & if not would call it a day.

As I walked up along the stone dyke I seen the berries coming across it so took the opportunity for a few arty shots.








I rounded the edge of the wood I seen another fish smutting at the surface film so sat for a while to see how frequent it came and, It seemed to be cruising around and not sticking to one particular spot as if hunting for food in the film. After carefully getting into position as not to spook it in the shallow water I took pot luck as to where it would cruise to next but it paid off and like the first fish almost as soon as the fly hit the water it took it.

 With nothing further moving and tiredness starting to creep up on me I decided to call it and headed back to the car, just over 3 hours fishing, cant complain at all especially with conditions the way they were and it certainly beat looking at the inside of my eyelids....now where is my bed!