Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Last week blues

We're into the last week of the 2013 Trout season and I hope that it's not going to go out with the same wimper that it came in on. It certainly seemed that way yesterday. There wasn't a breath of wind, hardly a sound in the air, no fly and no rising fish - the river felt dead.
After trying a few different methods and only picking up small fish, I decided to have a play with the 'French nymph', I've been playing around with a few different leader formulas lately, so it was time for a trial run. It paid dividends, the leaders turned over beautifully and I finished the day with three nice Trout, lost one and had a good Grayling.


I'd like to think that the remainder of this week will be like last week, the fish were feeding well on two out of the three outings I had (two with clients and one for myself). The rivers were up early in the week, but fishable by Wednesday and I had a very good afternoon session. I had to run a few errands so didn't hit the water until 1400. The fish were already rising to a trickle of olives, I wasn't sure what they were at the time, but I managed to capture one and my FBA (Freshwater Biological Association) Key to the adults of British Ephemeroptera confirmed that they were Medium Olives. Not that it matters that much, I don't think you have to be into entomology to have success, it helps, but it's not essential. What does matter is that you take the time to watch and work out what the fish are taking, then get yourself into the right position and present them with a suitable imitation. On this outing, it was a size 16 Olive Paradun.


The first fish that fell for the paradun was the best of the session at 2lbs 9ozs, but other good ones followed - they were 16" (40.5cm), 16 1/2" (42cm), two at 15 " (38cm) plus five between 12" and 13" and quite a few smaller ones - it turned out a very productive four and a half hour session.



The river wasn't as co-operative for Derek's day on the Eden, but his was more about casting than fishing and hopefully he has taken away a few skills that will benefit him in his future endeavours.
George and Hugh were out with me on Saturday. Neither had fished the Eden before, so we fished the 'Black Swan' stretch, this excellent hostelry has it's own piece of Eden that is reserved for residents only and I guide/teach on it. We spent the morning honing their skills and getting a feel for the river. The morning work paid dividends for them both - George managed three trout and his first Grayling, he also missed and lost a few. Hugh managed three Trout and - I think he may have lost a good fish, he thought a snag may have taken his top dropper but I have a feeling that it was a fish. Either way, I hope that they both enjoyed there first go at our great river and I managed to send them away with a few new skills.

 
George is into a fish
 
Hugh swings his flies perfectly
 
The season ends next Monday and although I am a touch sad about that, I have to admit that I'm also starting to get excited about what the winter may have to offer. Last year we saw a marked improvement in our Grayling fishing, so hopefully, it will be as good again this year.

2 comments:

Banzai! said...

Nice fishes! Maybe next year I'll be in Eden with you again!

Geoff Johnston said...

Hi Renato, great to hear from you, I hope you are well and doing plenty of fishing.
Pleased that you like the fish, it would be great to see you over here again. You did very well on your last trip to Eden, so hopefully you'll get into a few like these if you visit again!