Britain has almost turned tropical over the last week and many fishers have been seen with strange red markings over their forearms and necks.......
Sunshine and scorching hot days seem to make fishers uneasy and cautious about fishing. But for those who persevere, the fishing can be very rewarding...
With the sun beating down on my local river, the fish tend to turn on terrestrials for feeding. With a little north westerly wind, many terrestrials were being blown onto the surface causing the fish to feed.......and feed hard for short bursts.
From this 'cloud' of midge......you can see what I mean. It's no wonder the wild fish in my local river grow so big!!
- a dense cloud of midge -
Even though we cannot complain about the currnet weather in the North West, it really does make fishing hard and testing, but knowing the river and knowing where the fish will be lying or "sunbathing" is key to success.
Here is my great friend and fellow fisher John from KSDAA looking rather happy about the day and weather.....possibly life in general............
This bank holiday up in Cumbria has been on the cool and breezy side.
With the average temperature of 5-7 decree centigrade and breezy winds, I didn't hold up much hope on there been good numbers of fly on the water. However, when I arrived at the river bank (11am) I was surprised to see large numbers of large darks bobbing on the water.
Thinking I had missed the hatch, I gathered my gear and assembled on the go. Once I had got the terminal gear up and running, I just had to find a suitable pool, out of the wind!!!!!, and settled down ready for another burst of flies to hatch.
As I was waiting this little critter climbed up and dried its wings on my waders....
Whilst this chap was drying out, I heard some sips and rolls on the surface.......the time was right.
With a 16ft leader with 3.4lb tippet, line-shine removed for that one chuck cast, the first cast went out with some mend to account for the different flows in the river......bang! the first fish was on.....A fish of around 14inchs (1lb 7oz)...a lovely specimen to start the day.
Once I had found to GoPro in my many pockets..........I managed to get some footage. Please see the Video
After relocating about 2 miles upstream, Flies were still coming off the water!! The hatch was immensely dense and in the slack water I must have counted around 20 LWO in a foot square area.
Here is one that rested on the butt section of my Marksman 8ft 4wt.
After going cold turkey from september, there's only so many times you can check, recount and recount again your equipment making sure everything you need is in its rightful place in your jacket/vest/boxes. I think I counted 6 fly boxes when I emptied my jacket and simms vest.
After venturing down to my local, I managed to hook into a decent fish of 2lb 4oz and a few more fish. Luckily, thanks to my new GoPro Hero HD 2, I captured the fight on camera!!!
After several days of hard frosts, myself and KSDAA club secretary and dear friend John Garner headed to the river in search of grayling. After a slippy drive, we both arrived at the river raring to go.
The weather was sunny and the ground was beginning to thaw as we were assembling rods and talking tactics. We were going to do a kick sample but our friends Neil and Simon, also KSDAA members, from Blackpool had beaten us to it.......so thanks for saving us some time.
After walking up the river in search of suitable runs and glides we settled on a favourite "hotspot" so eat sarnies and have a coffee.
To cut a long story short..............it was a blank day. We thought we stood a high chance of hooking some grayling but they had other plans today.
The time in between fishing a walking the bank gave me time to take some stills so please have a look.
