A Turnaround in the Weather

A Hammered Klink

Since we last spoke conditions took a total U Turn toward the end of May, from cold days and a river holding it's water well, to a heatwave and the water dropping fast to much lower levels, making both trout and salmon fishing difficult once again. Despite these conditions though, there were evenings when we experienced good results with the trout fishing and the Klinkhammer became the go to fly, but the salmon slowed down significantly, as you would expect. Following this Mediterranean spell things did cool down again but weather patterns continued to be unpredictable for June and we are now experiencing high water again following heavy rain on Thursday and Friday and into the early hours of Saturday morning, which made the river unfishable on Saturday, especially the lower river which will now be out of order for a couple of days.



Male Adult Mayfly

Through the latter part of May and now into early June, there have been some good hatches of flies on the river, and a wide variety too, from sedges of all sizes, to olive uprights, Large Brook Duns, Yellow May duns, pale wateries and even the odd true (Danica) Mayfly. I did manage to get some good pictures with the macro lens on my digital camera of one or two of them, and just recently I witnessed a persistent hatch of Blue Winged Olives, spanning most of the afternoon and into evening affording us some good sport yet again.



Male Adult Olive Upright

I can't help thinking that if we hadn't been plagued by the persistant east winds we have experienced up to now this year, which have certainly contributed to lower temperatures at times, that hatches of insects would have been much heavier and more diverse, although that will hopefully change, and yesterday there were indicators that this will be the case as there was a large amount of June Bugs in attendance (Coch-y-bonddu beetles) on the mid river, which are generally seen on warmer days, (see picture, below right) but unfortunately as the water was high and coloured from the rain we had the night before, the trout were not paying much attention to these substantial mouthfuls of food as they were blown onto the surface, most likely due to the lack of visibility in the heavily stained water. 

Eden Coch-y-bonddu

In the interim period between the exceptionally hot weather we experienced toward the end of May, and the high water we have now, conditions improved yet again for the trout fisher, with last weekend being overcast and dull (despite the return of the east wind) the river was again fishing phenomenally well for brown trout. However, the high water we have at the moment is also good news for the salmon angler, as today the upper river is coming back into good condition, and if the water continues to drop, the lower river should fish much better for salmon around mid week, and we can then hopefully continue to enjoy the exceptional salmon season that the Eden has provided for many anglers already this season.



Eden Seat Trout

We have also had a few sea trout too, which are definitely in attendance, although there's not a great deal of angling pressure on them at the moment, as the evenings are still a little on the cool side to produce the kind of results that bring people out in numbers, having said that, it was warming up before this high water came, and the jungle telegraph will soon be kicking in along the river. In all fairness though, those that do venture out are the usual die hards that put the time in from year to year and they do deserve a fish or two, as they know what they are doing, but be aware, they are a secretive breed. A bit more sea trout fishing (late evening, early morning) is definitely high on the agenda, but this will have to be put on hold for a while until the river drops in again. I will keep you informed!

 

Playing a Tiger Trout

Continuing our work with youngsters, we delivered a couple of youth days again for Borderlines toward the end of last week, on a Loch in SW Scotland, with the few rainbow trout we caught coming to dries and suspender buzzers, and one of the youngsters even managed to land and return a tiger trout. This is a hybrid fish that is often artificially bred for fisheries, it is created by adding the milt of a brook trout to the eggs of a brown trout. It does occur in the wild where brook trout exist, (North America) but it is not that common. We have more youth days lined up for next week on the rivers.