Waders Dont Leak.

 After 431 days of not wearing them I can confirm they dont leak! That how long its been since I last slipped my feet into my waders and took the rod for a walk.

Yep thats wading boots on my feet, makes a change from hill walking boots and I was glad to be back on the bank. 

I made the decision last night that I was heading onto the river for a couple of hours today no matter what, especially seeing the weather front moving in over the next few days.

The wind blowing down the Dale was horrendous & I was sort of thinking not a lot was going to happen but I was hopeful that the high bank on a corner would allow for a hatch to happen in the sheltered bank & thankfully after 40 minutes of sitting & watching a couple of fish started to rise to a hatch of March brown emerging in the sheltered water.  

I slipped down into the water & had my first cast in all this time, It had to be a dry fly & whether I was going to connect with anything was a different story but am happy that I finished all that time ago with a Grayling & I started again today with another Grayling. Albeit I wasnt targeting them intentionally that was the first fish that connected with my dry fly.

        a quick snap &  she was gone back to the river

Another couple of casts & finally a brown trout rose to take my fly but I jabbed it & it was gone. Nothing else moved in the next 15 minutes so I took the decision to head upstream back into the wind & look for another sheltered spot.  The view upstream was just white caps from start to finish with the wind channelling down the river & killing any chances of a hatch in the moving water.

Finally finding another spot sheltered by some willows growing & my back to the wind I blindly cast into a small pool to see if anything could be tempted and in quick succession another 2 Grayling came to the net.

Lifted out the net, a quick snap & they were gone. I decided to call it a day, the wind was terrible & all that seemed to be moving was Grayling & I wasnt out to target them, an enjoyable couple of hours and a nice way to get back into the swing of things.