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| Phil playing a trout. |
The conditions in early June were relatively good and the fishing reflected this, but as the month moved on, then so did the temperatures, soaring to the mid 20's and above, which did slow the salmon fishing down a bit, although there were still plenty of fish showing in the pools, with the odd one still succumbing to the fly too, however if you were prepared to search the pocket water (yet again) in pursuit of the trout, you would be pleasantly surprised, with some good catches being recorded, and as we entered the final week of June with the higher temperatures giving way to much more comfortable weather,
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| Lewis with his first fish of the day. |
the dry fly really came into it's own, with non stop action from one end of the day to the other, with our top two flies proving to be the Parachute Adams and the Klinkhammer, but what made the whole process even more exciting, was the concentration required to identify the takes in the first place, (especially when having to cast slightly further whilst covering broken water) as many of these takes were mere sips in the surface film. This simply added to the pure satisfaction when you got it right and made contact with numerous hard fighting browns throughout the day.
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| Peter playing a Rainbow trout. |
I had a good session with a couple of Stillwater anglers in the early part of the month too (Steve & Peter) as we visited one of our (very picturesque) local Lakes to do some follow up casting tuition and a bit of Rainbow trout fishing which followed on from a previous session they had with me some time ago. The weather stayed fine and after some improvement and a few changes of fly patterns, Peter made contact with a couple of nice fish too, always a bonus!
Although we have concentrated mainly on the trout fishing this month, as conditions did lend themselves better to this approach, there has definitely been no shortage of salmon showing in some areas of the river, especially on the lower beats, but they were still playing hard to get, although I did manage to hook one during a casting session, (more by good luck than good management) and one local angler also hooked one of these difficult to tempt salmon (opposite us) whilst fishing a gold headed nymph for trout, not the first time he has done this I hasten to add, although we too have had the odd salmon on the nymphs over the years when conditions for salmon fishing have been difficult. Possibly a lesson to learn here!
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| Craig with yet another Brown. |
Around the middle of the month there was a good influx of Sea trout showing in some of the beats too, and I was asked by a keen Sea trout angler to take him out through the night to have a go at them, which needless to say I did, but unfortunately on this occasion the evening was very slow, with very little activity from the fish and quite a sharp cutting wind intervening as the night went on, putting paid to the better part of the early hours, however, I plan to give it another go in early July as I have another booking at that time which will hopefully give us the opportunity to once again cross swords with some of these truly enigmatic fish, so here's hoping that we get a warm overcast night with no wind and low clear water (a much better scenario for night time Sea trout fishing). Surely that's not too much to ask!!!
There may not have been much activity on the aforementioned Sea trout session, but there has definitely been lots of activity via Borderlines throughout June, with several youth days organised and delivered to a multitude of youngsters (of all ages) covering a wide range of venues on both sides of the border, (SW Scotland and North West England) with plenty more to come too, including a youth Sea trout session on the river Nith, but not at night I might add. Looking forward to that one!
