Exploring...

Ever walk past a tiny stream and find yourself wondering 'are there any trout in that'? As something of a repressed small stream nut, I do it regularly, and there's a particular bit of water near my girlfriend's house which I've been meaning to have a nosy around for quite a while now. I say 'a' bit of water, when in reality it's several - a whole network of little becks poppling along, criss crossing their way through a little village before eventually meeting the River Wharfe. They truly are tiny in a real sense. There's barely a point on any of them where I couldn't step comfortably across, and certainly no areas where the opposite bank is more than a little hop away.
Anyway, over the weekend I allowed myself some time to have a proper nosy at one of the streams to see what I could see. Here's a few photos..

I believe the poetic term for this kind of casting situation would be 'intimate'..

Deep water below this minature weir looked enticing.

Looking downstream.

A slow, deep bend - good place to fish spot once hatches kick up a notch?

A minute bottleneck at the head of a much deeper pool - probably 10 inches across at most!

The stream deepens as it flows under a bridge..

Findings? Yes, there's fish there, that's for sure. I saw one or two little dark shapes darting away from me as I walked. I'm sure a stealthy approach would reveal far more. I only saw fingerlings - not surprising in what is probably a nursery stream, but I'm sure there'll be some 6 inch levithians lurking in there somewhere!
I'd prefer to keep the location a secret - too much disturbance could affect the delicate balance in such a small ecosystem. That said, I'm sure any locals of the area would be able to place it in a heartbeat. I don't plan to fish it (I doubt I'd get permission even if I wanted to) - it's just cool to know of another place where old spotty chops is thriving!

My first Wharfe trout session of 2012: Massive fluke saves the day!

The Wharfe in spring - it's the bridge that's wonky, not the photo!

So, after a long wait, finally I was back on the good old Wharfe yesterday for my first crack of the season! I was unsure what to expect really with the weather having been up and down to the extent that it has, and when I arrived at around 1 o’clock (look, I slept in okay? We student-types don’t have the best of body clocks) to bright conditions and a very low river despite recent rain, I suspected things could be rather tricky.

I elected to fish a much heavier than usual #7 outfit and use streamer patterns. It’s something I’ve grown quite fond of doing over the last couple of seasons both in the early weeks when pickings are slim, and later on in the year if the water is high or everything seems a tad lifeless. It can be a very exciting way to fish. Given the right day, trout of all sizes swirl and snap at your fly as you jerk it back across the current – when you see a decent sized wild brownie flash and boil sometimes only a rod length away from you, it certainly focuses the mind. The takes themselves when they come are heart stoppers - violent, explosive, often followed by line being torn from the reel. In short, streamer fishing stirs things up.

A simple streamer pattern. Scruffy but effective.

My recipe for fishing a streamer is a simple one (probably not the right one, but simple!). Roll out a nice long line out just ahead of any likely looking ambush spot you might see – dark holes, eddies, overhanging trees etc. Throw in a mend or mends as required and allow the fly to drift down into the desired area, then jerkily twitch the fly back towards you and hold on tight. Recast and repeat the process, moving along covering any likely areas. Like I have said, it can be a very effective and exciting method of catching trout, but it can also become a trifle repetitive after a while. Cast, mend, drift, strip. Cast, mend, drift, strip. Cast, mend... well you get the idea. In fact given an hour or two without any success, it can become downright tiresome! Yesterday it was just that. I covered the water thoroughly, but it seemed that I was faced with a total lack of interest on the part of the fish. I did have one good pull from a fish which judging by the flash it made under the surface was around the pound mark, along with another little jag in an area of slow, dark water. Other than this though, the most intense things got was when I managed to lose a fly in a bush after casting just a tad too tight to the opposite bank.

Searching for a trout between the rocks.

Plenty of 'tree-trout' to be had on the far bank, as I found out..

I soldiered on, but it has to be said that after a time I started to lose faith – and interest. It’s the same with the slow start to every season. You start to second guess yourself – do I even remember how to catch a fish? Can I recreate the magic? I was never very good at it anyway, maybe I imagined all those days last May... These thoughts never stop nagging at me until that first little miracle lies in the net, and it wasn’t giving itself up easily!

I was startled by the amount of flies, particularly Grannom, which were hatching all over the river. Last year they didn’t show up for at least another week or two, but I suppose the hot weather at the back end of march brought everything forward a bit. Not a great deal of fish were being drawn to the surface, but the number steadily increased up to the point when by the evening it would have probably been worth fishing the dry fly, and I began to curse myself for my choice of gear. I did have a small selection of dries, but presenting them to these spooky fish in slow water with a #7 line wasn’t much good.

Spot the Bullhead...

Eventually I began messing around with nymphs to no avail, and soon resigned myself to the thought that my first of the season would have to wait until another day. Then, as I trudged my way up the path back upstream, I noticed a rise almost below my feet, tight to the margin at the bottom of a steep bank. What followed was perhaps one of the most outrageous strokes of luck I’ve had in my entire fly fishing life. I couldn’t see the fish from my vantage point but I was confident that I hadn’t spooked it since I hadn’t seen a swirl or anything else to suggest it had made a swift exit, so with only my leader and braided loop out of the tip ring, I carefully swung my fly into the water below me. Sure enough, a shadow loomed into view and the fly vanished. Immediately I realised that it was a reasonable fish, and also that I was now in a rather awkward predicament – stood atop a steep bank about 8 feet up from the water with a serious scrap on my hands! Quickly I decided that direct action was the only option, and I half fell, half skidded on my arse down the bank to the water’s edge whilst somehow managing to keep in touch with the trout as it tore around angrily. Once in position I soon began to gain a semblance of control over proceedings, and thanks to my stepped up streamer outfit, the fish was shepherded away from the danger of a jungle of sunken roots and towards me. A beautiful brownie of 1lb 14oz – not a fish to be sniffed at! So, with very little skill and a generous amount of jammy-as-hell, the first fish of the year is in the bag... not sure if a purist would count it, but I’m too young for all that!

Today, success is brown and spotty.

Sunset on the Wharfe. Who'd be anywhere else, eh.

A last note, before I sign off - specifically for the attention of any staunch C&R fanatics (I'm sure one or two may stumble across this post and recoil in horror at the above photo of my catch). Yes, that trout is dead. Gone. Shuffled of this mortal coil. Off to join the choir bleedin' invisible. It was a naturalised stock fish. Judging by the looks of it it had been at liberty for a year or two and a lovely fish but not a wildie. As such I had no qualms about taking it for the pot.
Happiness and harmony!

Tight lines,
Eric.

River Eamont, March 21st - photos.

Being stationed mainly in Cumbria at the moment, I decided to take advantage of the slightly earlier opening to the river trout season (March 15th as opposed to the 25th in Yorkshire) and ventured out for an exploratory trip on the River Eamont, an Eden tributary where I had watched salmon frantically charging about on the redds last November, near where it leaves Ullswater. The water was achingly cold and i didn't get so much as a tweak all day! Still, it was lovely to be out.

The Eamont near Pooley Bridge

Lower reaches of Dacre Beck, an Eamont tributary stream.

 

Dacre Beck again.

The Eamont here is run by Penrith Anglers, who also have water on the Eden, Lowther, and a bunch of small streams to boot. Day tickets for visitors are available at £15 a pop, which is good value considering the amount of water you get to choose from.
More info can be found on their website: www.penrithanglers.co.uk

Tricky Times on the Wharfe...

Last Friday (Jan 13th) saw me having a grayling trip to the Wharfe for the first time in a while (just on the offchance of a fish and for a spot of fresh air). The river was well up on its normal level and thus the going was hard with the fly rod. Had I had my float gear and a pint of maggots I might have winkled something out, but as it was I drew a blank! I put together a little video of the session... a picture paints a thousand words as they say, so I thought it might make a change from enduring my usual rambling!

Hopefully a session soon will throw up a fish or two!

Tight lines,
Eric

Salmon in a Stewpond...

A 53lb monster from Palm Springs... dream or nightmare?

On picking up the latest copy of Total Flyfisher, I was surprised to see another article about stillwater salmon fishing at Palm Springs in Rutland... a subject which I’m pretty sure had been covered by a virtually identical at least once in the last year! Repetition in the fly fishing media, however prevalent it may be, isn’t the point of this post, though. The point is it actually got me thinking – how do I really feel about the idea of catching the king of fish from a tiny pond about an acre in size?

The first point that would spring to the mind of a lot of people is that it’s artificial sport with farmed fish – a contrived shell of traditional salmon fishing as we know it. But that said, many people including myself often indulge in fishing for stocked rainbows on waters of a similar size, which one could argue is no different. Plus, one can’t rationally be against it on the grounds of not agreeing with salmon farming practices (which by the way are despicable – why the Scottish government allow it I will never know) as these fish are farmed and grown on entirely in freshwater. However, although I accept that ethically there’s no massively different argument against Palm Springs, there’s something about it which to me seems distasteful. For a start, there is my original perception of the salmon – a wild, free fish with a spectacular lifecycle, the pursuit of which takes the angler to beautiful, clear fast flowing rivers. This is the polar opposite – a small bowl full of hemmed in fish (better than a farm cage I suppose) swimming round and round in circles endlessly until they get snagged on some gaudy lure. And then there’s fish themselves! Take the brute above for example, all 53lbs of it. It’s hard to even begin to believe that this is the same species as the silver bullets that grace our rivers, in fact it looks more like an enormous deformed spotty carp... whatever happened to natural selection eh. To some, the chance to hook such a monster is probably a dream come true... to me it’s the stuff of nightmares.

Some people might want to give this a go (it’s £120 a pop if you’re curious/insane) and wrestle with a big salmon – something indeed many might not have the opportunity to do in the traditional manner for one reason or another, and that’s their call. In fact I’m sure it’d be an enjoyable novelty for about an hour, but you can count me out!

Late December Update: New Youtube channel and the weather's crap!

'Ey up interwebs!
With the excesses of Christmas out of the way (other than tomorrow night's more than likely alcohol-heavy celebrations) I thought it'd be as good a time as any to pop in with some news and a roundup of the last week or two.
First of all, I've now set up a Youtube channel to accompany all of the bloggy business. There isn't a great deal on it as of yet, but when the new trout season comes along in March I should be starting to post one or two short videos (hopefully of improving quality as I get the hang of shooting/editing) to add a bit of life and interest to the page. There's a link to the channel now in the blog sidebar on the right, or you can follow the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/user/YorkshireFlyNovice

So, with that out of the way, onto important meteorological matters. If you've peeked out from behind the curtains at all over the last week or two, if you live in my area at least, you'll probably have realised that the weather - as it usually does when I get some time off to actually go fishing - is playing silly buggers again! There hasn't been a period of consistant, settled weather for what seems like an age, with every likely looking day being sabotaged either by wind or rain. I haven't even considered fishing the Wharfe, as river levels have been up and down like a yo-yo, and the two short, fishless sessions I've had on the Aire both ended with me sheltering in slacks and eddies whilst the river rapidly rose without warning.
Yesterday's doomed session with the old man on the Aire and Calder Navigation after roach was perhaps the lumpy icing atop a rather suspect smelling cake though. The weather forecast had predicted an improvement in the weather - a few showers here and there perhaps, but the howling gale of the night before was set to blow itself out by mid morning. We even believed this when we arrived in mild, overcast conditions, with only the occasional sharp gust adding to the otherwise steady breeze. However, things rapidly took a nosedive with showers becoming colder, heavier and more frequent, and the wind building to the point where, when the unrelenting gale finally battered us into surrender at about half past three, it was a fight just to stay on my feet on the way back to the car. Between the three of us who were there, one sorry looking perch of about an ounce was all that was landed all day!... You had to laugh, really.
In the eternal words of one E. Blackadder, 'My life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own satanic herd'.

Tight lines all, and best wishes for the new year ;).
Eric

Another grayling trip: photos!

Hey up! Just thought I'd post up a few piccies I had kicking around from another grayling session I had on the Wharfe around the end of November, this time on the fly (yippee!). It was pretty damn chilly, but czech nymphing only produced out of season brownies, whilst a change to spiders fished just under the surface produced a couple of examples of the required species! Not a fantastic trip but a bit of action, and on the fly which is all the better.
I should be home for Christmas shortly, but the weather here in Cumbria is horrific. The Eamont and Lowther are both bursting their banks, and conditions in Yorkshire don't sound a lot better, so I doubt I'll be up to much fishing unless I can get on the Aire for a bash at some chub. Fingers crossed though!

Out of season brownie on a czech nymph.

And another - wrong season mate!

Possibly the smallest grayling I've ever caught?

A better one to finish.

P.S. sorry about the stupid photo formatting! Can't get it to work.. if anyone knows how to sort that out please let me know!