Cultural Fishing

It must be the weekend, the rivers are all full with last nights rain, nothing unusual there then. I was planning on a trip to the River Clyde to break up my journey to the Airport as my peace & quiet is about to be shattered after a week, the wife's coming home, but on advice from a friend was told it was too high to fish so had to change my game plan.

Instead I got up early and looked at the levels up the Dale as the rain hadn't been as bad over the Pennines as it had been in Scotland and although high I knew a couple of places where I might be able to winkle a fish or two from so headed out.

I took a bit of a slight detour on route as I have been meaning to do a cultural visit to a new statue but never got around to it so today was the prime opportunity.

 

FLIGHT

The Spitfire on Winston Bridge.

The statue is part of the Teesdale Viewmarkers  (click link)

and is dedicated to a feat of derring-do by Sqn Leader Ray Hanna a founding member of the Red Arrows who also founded the old flying machine company. Ray flew a Spitfire under the bridge for a scene in the film a piece of cake......Spitfire Under the bridge (click link)

On the other side of the bridge there is another sculpture.

CAST

A river smoothed pebble depicting the constant movement of water that formed the Dale.

Thats 3 of the sculptures I've now visited and have to say Im very impressed with them, albeit I think the feather one is in the wrong place which I took photographs of in an earlier blog entry.

so that was my cultural visit on route for a few hours fishing.

When I got to the river sure enough it was high but the place I had in mind was still fishable so setting up a nymph approach I started and it didn't take too long till I had connected with my first fish, a lovely grayling.

Taken on a nymph I had only tied up last night purely something I had knocked together, so pleased that it took the first fish of the day.

It wasnt much longer until the second fish took a liking to the nymph and another nice grayling was in the net and then disaster struck, I dropped the camera into the water albeit only for a matter of a few seconds as it slipped from my hand!

I have to apologize for the next couple of pictures as they are hazy these were the last couple of pics before the camera totally died.

The smell of the mint by the river was so lovely this  morning, I could smell it from about 4 feet away.

I continued on and picked up a few small trout.

As I made my way upstream I remembered the sloe bushes and was curious to see how far the fruit had come on since my last visit. They are ripening up nicely and I reckon another 3 weeks and they will be ready to be picked for this years process of making sloe whisky.

I could hear the camera making all sorts of weird noises in my pocket, turning itself on & off, the LCD screen was totally blacked out so couldn't actually see if the picture was in frame or not, I sat & had a cup of coffee and tried the best I could with some toilet paper I carry in my pocket to dry it out, the pictures becoming worse as the water seeped into the screen and lens.

I walked up to another spot where I knew I would be able to fish with some ease and managed another couple of small trout, this being the last photograph the camera took, before it died totally.

I continued on for a couple of hours and managed another 6 trout and 1 grayling so was chuffed with the end result in such difficult conditions. Now its time to get my head down for a few hours before the 6 hour round trip drive to the airport to get my wife.

The camera as I write is drying out on the window ledge and Im hoping that it will dry out enough to give me another few outings otherwise it will be in the recycle bin and I will have to bring out my last spare from the drawer, I do hope Santa brings me a waterproof one this year.