A Morning with Some Lovely Ladies.

I had plans afoot to finish the night shift on Monday morning and head straight out to the fishing, HOWEVER nothing went as planned, firstly whilst at work I had a wee accident which left  me seeking medical attention and ended up having to have my fingertip stitched to keep it together. so that was that but I still had thoughts of going after getting that sorted, but on checking the gauging station for the morning reading at 0545hrs it was almost at 1m 50, well above fishable levels so a drive home to lick my wounds and a few hours in bed.

Tuesday seen me up at 0630hrs and checking the gauging station and it had dropped sufficiently enough to warrant a few hours before starting the back-shift in the afternoon so off I set up the Dale with gear already loaded in the car from the previous day. I arrived just after 0730hrs, I had made a decision as the water was high to try the second of the new rods I had received recently, mostly due to the extra few feet in length from my other rod as the Suredale was 12ft in length, I say new its a rod which I have been reliably informed was made in late 1949 or early 1950 so 66 years old or thereabouts.

The rod in question is part of the Dalesman series and is the 12ft Suredale made by James Aspindale & Son.










The rod was well looked after by the gentleman who gifted me the two rods and am grateful that I have now have the pleasure of using it along with the eclipse for what they were designed for.

After arriving at the river and setting up I chose a run which I normally go to when the river is this high and first trot through the float dipped away half way down, the first fish on the first cast, an omen or sign of bad luck for later I'm not quite sure as these things always go through my head when I get a first fish on the first cast.

The camera was still engaging the flash as it still was not completely light but a very nice start to the morning and I hoped that this would not put the dampeners on the rest of the morning!

I breathed a sigh of relief 5 minutes later when the float disappeared for the second time and fish on, the first fish on the first cast was not a bad omen after all.

Another well proportioned Grayling from this part of the river.
The camera using the flash for the first photo but not for the second...dont you just love technology.

It was feeling like everything was starting to come together for a good day, within 30 minutes of fishing I had 2 decent fish in the net, and the weather wasn't being too bad although it was meant to be heavy snow showers throughout the morning, about another 15 minutes past before the float tip disappeared again and another Grayling came to the net.

The bandaged finger makes an excellent brake for the pin but I dont recommend slicing your finger and getting 4 stitches just to improve your rear drum braking skills on a pin.

A fish with some damage which I am starting to see more and more of now on this stretch, yet I have never seen any of the flying  predators in numbers above one, this one fortunately didn't have any stab marks, just a few scales missing and some reddening, which I first mistook for spawning marks as there were similar marks around the belly of it, who knows but I dont think this early in the year.

I had spoken too soon and was starting to think about eating my own words as for the next hour, nothing else came out of the run and just as I was about the pull the float and move to another part of the river, it dipped away and a small Grayling came to the hand.







So I moved downstream to my second chose of runs and after 40 minutes in there was rewarded with one small fish.

I decided to head back upstream to my last place that I knew I would be able to fish with the levels being the way they were, around an hour had passed and although the sport had improved the size of fish had got smaller, 15 grayling all of similar size, but it kept me occupied and I wasn't complaining.

I knew if I stuck with it sooner or later there must be some better sized grayling around to make an appearance and sure enough I was rewarded for my perseverence.

After this one made an appearance I took some time out to let the run rest and have a well deserved coffee noticing that the snowdrops were all around and more and more making an appearance since my last trip.

Sporting a not so clean bandaged finger.

Whilst walking around I stumbled across no less than 8 plastic floats all caught up in the driftwood on the high water line.

 I have to say these anglers who use these for sight indicators, a multitude of luminous colours must be bloody blind or is this the new sight indicators for nymph fishing!........
(Joke before I start getting abusive emails)

They most probably came from the outflow on one of the hill lochs stocked with Rainbows on the any method rule.
Needless to say they wont be used again....they are now deceased!



 Time was starting to get on and I only had about another hour before I would need to call it a morning and head home to prepare for this afternoon's shift at work, so refreshed and raring to go I slipped back into the stream and sure enough the second trot through the float disappeared.

Finally a fish from this river with some shoulder to it, usually the bigger fish are more lean and longer in length so nice to see something a bit different.

Another few smaller fish followed before another lasso fish as Ive came to cal them, fish that are not content with just taking the hook but like to tie themselves up in knots around the line.

I decided that I had to call it a morning and get myself back for work.

The rod had performed great and it will be joining the other one gifted to me as two of my regular trotting rods.












And so with that I left the river and headed back to the car, I couldn't complain I had a great morning's fishing and some nice fish to reflect on whilst working, shame I couldn't sit with a sloe whisky like I normally do.