Monday, 9 August 2010

The Grilse Are In

I was on the river with Fay last Wednesday who is a regular visitor to Border Game Angling. With no surface activity whatsoever we set up with two small pheasant tailed nymphs which turned out to be the business. Unfortunately the larger fish proved to be illusive but Fay did manage to catch and return 13 small Brown Trout which did keep her very busy throughout the session.

At the end of last week we held a youth event for the Carlisle Angling Association under the Borderlines banner and with some very welcome help from committee members Graeme Proud, Colin Pulmer, David Altham and George Pearson, along with some fantastic assisstance from Rebbecca and Joanne from the Eden Rivers Trust, the day was very successful with 88 youngsters attending along with other family members bringing the total attendance to well over 100. The day included fly tying, fly casting, fishing, entomology and lots of information about the environment and fishing related subjects. Hats off to the C.A.A. for sponsoring such a great day and promoting angling and the benefits it can bring to those who care to participate.

I have also been involved in many more fishing sessions with Borderlines over the last couple of weeks introducing younsters and families to fishing of all kinds on both stillwaters and rivers including the River Nith and the Border Esk which has been very rewarding.
Plenty of Spey casting tuition with the Salmon fly rods again, and as people were getting to grips with the techniques required whilst on the river Eden we saw on more than one occasion several fresh run Grilse arriving in the system at last, but up to now despite some of the guys covering the fish very well they are certainly not in a taking mood, but with the Haaf Net operators also seeing very large Grilse runs entering the estuary then it should only be a matter of time before more fish are caught.


We did get an additional small rise of water on the Eden on Saturday albeit very peaty which usually indicates that the river Eden has been influenced by one of its upstream tributaries known as the river Irthing, this can seriously effect (for a period of time until it begins to clear) the fishing downstream in a negative way, but that said, I was much higher up the river yesterday above this tributary and the water was also very peaty suggesting that at least not all of the additional water was from the Irthing alone. This certainly did make the fishing difficult though as Fay found out on her return for another Trout session with only one small fish.
I continued on Yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours on my own and despite missing a couple of offers on the nymphs and one lost fish, I did manage a nice Brown Trout of around one and a half pounds at the 11th hour on a size 14 Dry Greenwell's Glory. A nice way to end the afternoon.