On Friday 20th August we did get the rain that was forecast which did put the river up and coloured. This put the majority of Saturday out of order for fishing on the river although it did begin to clear higher up the river towards the end of the day with the lower river still holding plenty of colour. This was a shame because I had Alex and Yuji (originally from Japan) with me for their first taste of Salmon tuition and fishing, needless to say we dedicated the whole of Saturday to casting tuition to get them up to speed partly because of the conditions we encountered, although they did have a chance later on as the water began to slightly clear higher up the river. Sunday saw a nice water higher up the system but with no Salmon obliging, although Alex and Yugi managed a couple of good trout instead, meanwhile on the lower river although still very coloured I had reports of a few Salmon caught on spinners.
Monday and Tuesday saw Alan and Stewart Cape (Father & Son) with me for a bit of Salmon casting tuition and Trout fishing (pictured here) and following a little more heavy rain late Monday afternoon I expected the river to be up again on Tuesday morning, but not so, and the water was once again in good order on the middle river, although the majority of Salmon being caught were further down the system with some good catches.
On Thursday Martin Buss who was on holiday near Ullswater came for a days Brown trout fishing with his son Harrison and between them they caught several small fish on the fly, but the highlight of the day was when 10 year old Harrison (pictured below) played and landed his first ever Brown Trout a nice fish as you can see from the picture.
As the week progressed towards the weekend the weather turned drier and brighter and the forecast for now is for a very dry bright week which we are most certainly getting at the moment, and as you may know this is not good for the Salmon fishing at what is usually a very good time of year. That said we had some mixed chances last Sunday with Doug Douglass and his friend Mike connecting with five Salmon throughout the duration of the day but with fish taking the flies and crashing on the surface at times no fish were actually landed which was very unlucky, but it does show that they are there and willing to take the fly in the first place which is always a good sign.I was out with Fay Larkins on Monday morning who managed to hook and loose a very nice Brown Trout which gave a good account of itself but unfortunately parted company with the angler once again. In the afternoon I fished on myself for a while and managed to land a couple of small Brown
Trout and some very good Grayling on the dry fly, one of which had to easily be weighing in at around two and three quarter pounds, I don't think it would have quite made 3 pounds, but a fantastic specimen all the same. I did manage to get a photograph but it was difficult to hold it far enough away from the camera to get it all in and focussed as I was on my own and it was not behaving itself as any of you who fish for Grayling will know they are very powerfull fish in the hand and can be difficult to hold still. So although I have missed the tail of the photo you can at least get a good indication of the size of the fish from this snap.
Trout and some very good Grayling on the dry fly, one of which had to easily be weighing in at around two and three quarter pounds, I don't think it would have quite made 3 pounds, but a fantastic specimen all the same. I did manage to get a photograph but it was difficult to hold it far enough away from the camera to get it all in and focussed as I was on my own and it was not behaving itself as any of you who fish for Grayling will know they are very powerfull fish in the hand and can be difficult to hold still. So although I have missed the tail of the photo you can at least get a good indication of the size of the fish from this snap.
