"dry" fly fishing.....

A saturday afternoon trip out - Hillsborough was to be avoided due to Wednesday playing at home, so I opted to explore a new stretch of river, accessed from Club Mill Road. I parked up on an industrial estate just off the A61, and walked a few hundred yards to the river.

There were  couple of blokes float fishing just up from where I got in the river, so thought it best not to start wading up towards them. This however did mean that I had to wade down river, and then fish back up. I waded down, past some massive banks of Himalayan Balsam. Once I had waded a hundred yards or so, I waited for a while, sorting out my leader and deciding which flies to fish. As I got ready, fish started rising in the area I had just waded through 5 minutes previously.

The "grayling run"

I started off on a duo rig, but before long the heavens opened. I sheltered under a tree overhanging the water, which provided little cover!

Downpour!

As the rain abated, there were a large number of midge type flies over the water. Fish started rising all around me, so I quickly cast the duo rig (Wulff on the top, Copper John on the bottom) and covered some rises. To no avail - despite laying out some nice precise casts, nothing was interested.

Time for a change of flies - and onto a black F fly. As soon as the fly hit the water, there was a take which I missed. I cast again, missing the spot I was aiming for by about 3 foot. And the fly got hit again. And I missed again!

Fish seemed willing to take wherever I cast. I soon connected with a fish, a small grayling.

Soon after, another downpour, so more sheltering. Straight after the rain, casting to the same spot, I kept getting takes and connected with every 3rd or so. It seemed there were a lot of greedy grayling!

A cast tight into some overhanging willows produced a nice little brown trout - camera shy as it wriggled back into the water before I'd taken its pic.

After some good sport on this little run, I waded on upstream. The river was now running higher and seemed more coloured.

I fished on up to a slow glide, where there were fish rising. The F fly failed to tempt them on this occasion, and the duo wasn't working either.

Time was pushing on, so I decided to finish by fishing the fast run by the wall up to the weir, and the weir pool itself.

The bright green water weed (not sure of the name ? ranunculus) is really taking hold here, making the place look like a real trout stream!

I had a couple of hits on the copper john, before hitting into a nice little brown trout.

A nice Don brownie, with its blue-ish sheen

Fishing the tail of the weir pool, I soon had another brown trout, which skipped and splashed over the water.

The light was fading now, so off back to the car and home. Another fun trip, really enjoyable dry fly fishing for grayling and some nice brown trout as well.