Evening on the Bank

With temperatures reaching 24 degrees Celsius in the Dale I wasnt heading out in bright sunshine, with the river so low & clear, so after doing some work in the garden for most of day that required my attention and a slap up meal, which I had been saving myself for all day and you can see why!

A 2kg tomahawk steak bought for me as a present, this was certainly the biggest steak I have ever tackled.

Cooked to perfection and so tender the meat just disintegrated in my mouth, it was so good but Im so glad I didn't eat anything up till that point or I couldn't have achieved it, certainly worth waiting for.

After a meal like that I knew what was needed, a good walk up the river so thats exactly what I did, leaving home just before 6pm, I arrived on the river and found I had the stretch to myself. Standing and watching for movement I seen one solitary fish rise but apart from that the river was quiet. Sitting on the bank for almost half an hour observing for any fish movement it was the one solitary fish that was moving and nothing else.

My nostrils were full of the aromas of the wild garlic which was now well into flower.

I decided to try for the fish that was rising but I had my suspicions that it might be a Grayling which were soon confirmed as it rose for my size 18 fly I had presented over its head.

With no further movement around me I headed up the river in search of rising fish, I wasnt overly bothered as it was a nice evening for a walk and I knew sooner or later I would come across a fish.

I walked upstream for almost 40 minutes before seeing another fish rise, so getting into position it took a few casts before it to took my fly that I had presented to it. A nice small wild brown.

I sat on the bank watching a hatch start to form and before I knew it the hatch turned into a swarm, literally, Grannom in their millions!

This picture does not show the truth justification of the swarm, literally millions of Grannom hatching as the evening air started to cool.

A couple of sheep with lambs on the far bank came down to watch me and as you can see from all the brown speckles in the air, it was so thick with flies hatching and taking to the wing. 

and yet not one single fish was making a move for them, the river was flat calm apart from the speckles of disturbed water that the flies were making as they broke through the surface.

The hatch went on for well over an hour and in all that time I only saw one fish rise for any surface movement of flies and it was this small trout which on the 2nd cast it too took my artificial I had presented.

With no further fish moving I sat on the bank until the sun had dipped below the horizon and saw no fish movement but was honoured with the sight of a barn owl hunting in the fields behind me, too far for the zoom on my small pocket camera.