Sunday, March 28, 2010

Small fish saves first blank and Ullswater

I managed a couple of hours on the river yesterday afternoon before having to rush home for the Penrith Anglers social evening where Paul Procter delivered an excellent talk and slideshow about fishing in Slovenia.

The river was dropping and clearing after the band of rain that passed through our area on Thursday night/Friday morning and it was just fishable. Once again, there was a distinct lack of Olives - I saw three, so it was on with the nymph again.
My first blank of 2010 was just avoided when this 8 1/4" (21cm) fish saved the day.
I was on Ullswater today, guiding for Peter and John. They were first timers on the lake and unfortunately the weather did not do them any favours - with a bitterly cold and at times very strong westerly, making fishing difficult and pretty uncomfortable at times.

Sport was slow but they both did well considering the poor conditions and managed to save their blanks with a fish each.


Saturday, March 27, 2010

Second outing 2010 - The River Eamont

This (above) is a sight that we're not enjoying this year as we fish the River Eamont - the host of golden daffodils are nowhere to be seen, they like most things, have been slow to make an appearance this year. The Large Darks (Baetis Rhodani) remain sparse - I only saw about six today, so hardly surprising that there was no surface activity.

My favourite method - upstream nymphing, was the method for me today and although sport was slow it did produce four good fish for the session. All were quickly photographed and returned safely.

The first was 14 inches (36cm)

The second was 16 3/4 inches (43cm)

The third 15 inches (38cm)

And the fourth - this tubby 15 3/4 incher (40cm)

All four fish came to a Size 10 Hares Ear Goldhead nymph - some I've talked to express surprise that I use a size 10 but in my opinion one of the most important aspects in chosing our general imitations is size and at this time of year any invertibrates that are reaching maturity are quite large - and there's not a lot but we should expect to see, Large dark Olives (Baetis Rhodani), March Browns (Rhithrogena Germanica) in some areas (although I haven't seen one around here for years) nymphs of The Large Brook Dun (Ecdyonurus Torrentis) should be reaching maturity and towards the end of this month and into early April we should start to see the odd stonefly nymph.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Here at last - The glorious 15th

It was great to be out after the Trout again after the long and very cold winter lay off - I've been looking forward to this day for weeks.

I saw my first Large Dark Olive at 1200 and caught my first fish of the new season five minutes later - a 14 1/4" (36.5cm) Brownie on the nymph.

Three more olives appeared on the water and I took my second fish of the season, a 16 1/2" (42cm) fish, fifteen minutes after the first and also to the nymph - I wondered if this very slight piece of invertibrate activity had woken these two from there slumber in the hope that there would be more food on offer. Well there wasn't, I didn't see another fly for the rest of the day and didn't get another offer.
But I'm not complaining - I expected a slow start after the coldest winter for 31 years and am more than happy with a couple of fish on opening day.