At last, things are beginning to step up a gear on the river as temperatures begin to warm up, and those of you who do a bit of trout fishing will know that things have been rather slow of late. Not so now though with the insect life increasing in the form of large stoneflies, some very good hatches of Grannom (Sedges) carpeting the river in places and a few sporadic hatches of Large Dark Olives still in attendance, and the Brown trout fishing has really kicked in. I was on
the river with Andrew and Charlie toward the end of the week as they proceeded to catch six fish between them to around 1 1/4lb, (all returned) with an added bonus when Charlie actually managed to hook, but unfortunately loose a substantial Rainbow Trout (on the duo) which almost came to the net, obviously an escapee from higher up the system. Andrew also missed a few good fish on the spiders as they nipped the flies in the surface film.
Yesterday I was out with Doug, who I met in 2005 and he has been coming once or twice a year ever since to successfully fish for both Salmon and trout. On this particular occasion he came to do some trout fishing and keep up to speed with his casting which I was really impressed with as I remember when he first came and he has come a long way since then. The day started with a bang and did not stop. He played and landed five really good quality Brown Trout, the smallest being around 1 1/4lb with a couple of good fish around the 2lb mark. He then continued his run with 2 herling (small Sea Trout) 2 Grayling the biggest definitely being over 2lb
and just to top it off he hooked and played a nice silver Salmon of around 5 - 6lb which eventually managed to get the upper hand and shed the hook. All of this action was on a 9ft 3inch 6 weight fly rod. After successfully setting the hook on all takes bar three during the day, Doug sat down and in his own words said "did that really happen".
The most significant piece of information that became apparent throughout the day was the substantial amount of very fresh Grilse between around 4 - 7lb that were creeping through on very low water and we saw between us a couple of dozen on the day of what can only be described as early running Grilse. Long may it last!
