A night the spinners ruled

I decided to head out last night with the weather forecast for today meant to be heavy showers ...which still hasn't materialized as I sit mid afternoon writing this blog entry......Oh don't you just love the BBC weather forecasters!

I headed out onto the river last night just before 1900hrs by the time I got to the stretch I wanted to fish, hoping for a good rise as the sun dipped away. As I sat observing the water for movement I caught a flash out the corner of my eye as a male sparrowhawk was giving chase to a small crow fledgling by the look of things and it was gaining fast before it dipped over the hedge out of eyesight, first Ive seen for a while and always nice to see birds of prey.

There was the normal flurry of fly life on the river but not much movement in the way of rising fish, the fish that were rising were all small fish, so in anticipation of a good hatch of spinners later on I occupied my time with the smaller fish till something better made an appearance.

I didnt have to wait long until the first small grayling sipped down my fly.

Always great fun on the dry fly.











As I moved upstream I could see into the distance for a good mile and it looked like I had the river to myself again tonight apart from the large heron sat on the other side of the river farther upstream.

Making my way casting here & there at the small rising fish I don't know how many I missed but I got a couple of small trout and another couple of small grayling to add to the one from earlier.

As the sun started to disappear the last rays of light shone through the clouds

before it disappeared completely and the amount of spinners which suddenly appeared overwhelmed me with the sheer numbers, the sky all around me was positively black with them. I thought this was it, I would be in for a good night of fish feasting on them so sat and waited for things to happen, and waited, and waited and just before 2245hrs I seen my first decent fish of the evening move far over the river close to the trees on the far bank, after some careful wading I got myself into a position I was confident I could cover the fish and after a few casts it took my fly for all of a split second before releasing itself at distance.

Sitting back on the bank and scanning the river in the low light there was absolutely nothing moving to the fly life which was dancing all over the surface and just above....nature really is a difficult book to read at times, especially when everything was perfectly in place for rising fish, yet none turned up to party.
Just after 2230hrs I left the river and walked back through the desolate barns back to the car to be met with a small owl perching on the gate staring at me before it  took to the wing....another night where the trout didn't want to play and I'm sure before the season is over there will be other nights just as bad, but the sight of the sparrowhawk and the little owl did give some satisfaction as its not all about catching fish.

I was approached a few weeks back about permission to use one of my images in a write up by fishtec an angling company that wanted to do a small piece about angling photography, so after the approval I got sent the finished article a few days ago.........http://blog.fishtec.co.uk/fishing-photography-tips