Nothing was moving for the hatch but there was a small hatch of light olives and the occasional yellow mayfly hatching off.
With this in mind I decided to start of a spider & nymph combo and fish the faster paced water until I see a definite move of the fish on the dries then I would switch tactics.
First couple of fish were small Grayling, all around the same size falling to a small black pheasant tail nymph.
Making my way upstream I stumbled across a father & son duo who were attempting to persuade a solitary rising trout to take their artificial, after a few minutes talking and introductions I found out I have spoke to the lads online in one of the social media fly fishing sites that I used to frequent, and with no luck in persuading the trout I headed upstream as they headed downstream.
After making my way upstream through a few sets of runs without any success I decided to sit and scan an area where I have seen a good hatch around midday in the past, so parking my body beside the blue bells which were scattered around the bank I scanned for movement.
I started to see an occasional fish move onto the olives and hatching mayflies so tackled up with a dry fly set up and put a yellow olive pattern I made up a few months ago to see if I could tempt one of the trout, second cast across a rising fish and up it came & sipped down the fly, finally a trout.
Watching another fish rise I cast to it and almost as the fly hit the water up came a set of lips and the fish was on, It turned out to be a lovely fish, much better than I had anticipated and it took me almost to the backing on its first run, then the line went limp the tippet had snapped, needless to say the air turned blue for a few moments as it does when you loose a nice fish!
Undeterred I sat for a few moments gaining my composure again as I tied on another fly and sat scanning again, the pool was lifeless now no flies were hatching and nothing moving, so decided to head back downstream to see if I could see anything again.
I managed another small trout to the dry fly.
Nothing else was moving to the continuous trickle of flies that were hatching so I switched back over onto the spiders again for the last hour and managed a further 5 small Grayling from the streamy water at the head of the deeper pools. No further trout were seen and speaking again to the two lads from earlier they had no trout either so it seems the trout are still being a bit elusive and only the occasional one making an appearance.
I sat & dismantled the rod as the sun was high in the sky and it was stifling hot and decided to call it a day, 4 hours was sufficient and I had a nice time albeit I lost the largest fish of the day, but with beautiful flowers all dotted along the riverbank how could I complain.
a few flies tied this week in a spare hour or so I had after work and a fly thats works very well at this time of year on the dales rivers, the Grey Duster #16
George your brown trout are so crisp. I love that silvery color.
ReplyDeleteI'm liking the Grey Duster...what's the hook?
cheers Alan,
ReplyDeletethe hooks I used for the grey dusters are #16 kamasan B440 up eye dry fly hooks.
George, we don't have Grayling here in Connecticut, a specie I've always admired and longed to catch but we do have Fallfish. Fallfish would probably be considered a coarse fish, in your neck of the woods. On the other hand Fallfish rise freely to dry flies (better than trout) and usually jump when hooked and put up a reasonable tussle. Personally, I consider them my substitute for Grayling, which I will likely never catch.
ReplyDeleteHi John, Thanks for dropping by, Yes I would class fallfish as a coarse species, the nearest thing we have to them here in the UK is Chub, which will openly also take a fly pattern if it drifts past its nose but not more often than trout I have to say. If they give you pleasure that's all that counts, maybe one day you will get to fish for the Grayling who knows. Best regards George
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