I awoke to find the sky overcast but very still, no wind at all so I knew exactly the place I would head in these conditions and a short drive later, passing a couple of photo opportunities on route.
It wasnt too long until I had parked the car and was getting the waders on. The short walk to the river was as I had expected it to be, very quiet apart from the pheasants and curlews calling and the wind was none existent which made a load of difference and would set me up nicely for a good day if it stayed that way.
Opting to start on nymphs after observing no surface movement in 10 minutes it didn't take too long to prove that I had put on the correct nymph as a Grayling slipped over the rim of the net, and we were off to a good start.
A few further casts & the indicator stopped stone dead, at first I thought I was snagged on the bottom only the bottom started to move, this was feeling like a good fish and after a few moments of twists, turns and rolls the net slipped under a lovely Grayling measuring over 40cm. Not too many of these around on this river so when they do come you can imagine the jubilation of getting it into the net.
Scarred on its right flank from a wound which has long since healed over apart from that it was in mint condition and gave a lovely account of itself.
As always returned to give sport another day.
Under an hour and my day had been made, everything else from here on in was a bonus, what a brilliant start to my first full day back.
On walking upstream I came across a feeding location for one predator, not that Im complaining as they are avidly feeding on the American Crayfish in the river.
A few more Grayling graced my net as I went from riffle to riffle.
Before the first Brown Trout of the day made an appearance.
Small but beautifully marked.
I had reached the part of the river where I was hoping I would be able to change over to Dry fly as if any part of the river would have fish breaking the surface, this was to be it. I sat for 15 minutes or so observing the river before the silence was broken.
Courtesy of the Ministry of Defence a quartet of Apache Attack Helicopters came up the river, and when I say up the river, they were doing just that some 50ft off the water, following the contours of the river just above the treetops.
Took me back to the days of having them work in support of us in Bosnia, when they often hovered above our heads as a show of strength...Awesome pieces of machinery.
No sooner than they had made an appearance they disappeared again and the peace of nature had resumed again.
After seeing a few fish rising I decided to change over to dry fly and see what I could coax and it wasnt long until the Grayling were rising freely to my artificial.
As with most Grayling on the dry fly it was a hit & miss tactic with a lot of fish slipping off the hook just after they had been hooked but the numbers were irrelevant to me it was just great to be back on the river catching the fish Im most passionate about, The Grayling.
The rise soon died away and I switched back to nymphs as I started making my way downstream in the direction of the car.
The Grayling they just kept coming to the nymphs.
It was just after 3pm when I decided I didn't want to ruin a lovely day, the Grayling had done me proud and I didnt want to have too much of a good thing so I took a slow walk back to the car thinking how the sloes in my picking location would be coming on so coming to the decision to make a slight detour on the way home and stop off for a look and maybe even a quick cast of a 7ft 3# glass rod I had in the boot of the car which I had not managed so far to cast since buying it.
Well I can report the sloes are back in abundance again this year which bodes well to my sloe whisky stocks, I estimate another two weeks and I will be revisiting them with my bucket.
As for the Glass rod I did have a few casts for 30 minutes or so and it was christened with a Brown trout.
This just topped off what was a perfect day, 27 Grayling to the net, around 20 dropped or lost in the fight and 2 Brown Trout, and I still had the Monza Grand Prix highlights to watch when I got home...just perfect.
After thoughts.....Tuesday 4th Sept.
I thought this fish looked familiar and after some looking through the zip drive of photographs I keep sure enough from a month ago the same fish, it hasn't travelled much neither in that time.
Caught on the 7th July 2018
Caught again 2nd September 2018
who says Catch & Release doesn't work!
Was that the big house up the hill at Easby Abbey.
ReplyDeleteno mate its egglestone abbey 14 miles north of where your thinking.
DeleteA pleasure to read, delightful. The river seems to have run down to a fine trim. A couple of weeks ago we had five American F15Es come in line astern, 100 yards apart at treetop height, fantastic machines. They at the height of the poplars and the only thing that has struck the two jack Russells dumb. The noise was unbelievable. As my nephew who flies a fast jet says, t'he sound of freedom', but they were turning fuel into noise alright! which nymph were you using? regards, John
ReplyDeletedefinitely John, the noise alone makes folk run for the hills. The river has fined down fine again and was in top class condition on sunday, the nymph I was fishing was a self creation of black pheasant tail and ice dubbing.
DeleteGeorge great post as usual...
ReplyDeleteThose Apache's are awesome machines.
certainly are Alan, I've been fortunate to have them support me and my fellow troops a few times during my career, totally awesome firepower for sure.
DeleteOur nephew was flying air support over Bosnia in his Harrier. He has a book full of stories about that and the two show's in Iraq. Well done to all of them I say. Regards, John
DeleteJohn, He's probably flew over my head a few times as I've been in all the places you mentioned at time of war and a few more during my career.
DeleteThe other week I was fishing the Ure at Tanfield when a pair of Chinook's flew along the river fairly low setting off the car alarms in the car park. There was a lad down stream Salmon fishing who had to exit the river to turn the alarm of on his Bentley because his remote did not work at distance.
ReplyDeleteThats something that wont happen where Im fishing Neil, No bentley drivers on the stretches I fish...lol
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