Wednesday, October 8, 2014

That's another season over....

The long dry spell continued right up until the final day of September and the end of this year's Brown Trout season. But, luckily, it didn't seem to deter the fish as they still responded well to our offerings right to the bitter end and I struggled to tear myself away from the river on the 30th after a great day's sport in conditions more akin to the height of summer....

 
I've been lucky to get the opportunity to introduce a few youngsters to our great sport this season. The most recent to give it a go was 11 year old Sam. He'd never fished the fly before, but he'd been into John Norris of Penrith to get some tackle advice before spending some time on the river with me. He picked it up well and was soon casting to a decent level which led to a productive first fly fishing session on his local stretch of the Eden.... I hope that he'll now be hooked for life.

 
Everyone that has visited Eden over the past month has managed to get into fish, which was good. As mentioned in my last update; the fish have been slow - or not had the chance  -  to respond to the surface fly, but they have responded well to sub-surface offerings. So on most occasions nymphs and spiders have been the order of the day, which worked well for Martyn's visit as he'd wanted to look at nymphing techniques. We looked at a few different ways to present the nymph, where you would fish it and why, and one or two fish liked what he had to offer.


Roger was in Eden for the first time and my orders for the day were to concentrate on Grayling. We managed to locate a few that liked the look of our nymphs and spiders, and Roger was close to double figures by the end of the session, plus a few lost and a very good trout that took as the flies came onto the hang. The water erupted as Roger lifted into the fish but unfortunately it was only on for seconds before it threw the hook.
 
Our 'North Country Spiders' did the trick for Richard too  

 
The last few days of the season were quiet on the guiding front, so it was an opportunity for a bit of 'my time' and I took full advantage. The last two days gave us unseasonably high temperatures and sunshine - more like mid-Summer than early Autumn. But it certainly didn't affect the fishing, trout were feeding hard with good numbers of fish responding to anything that I threw at them - apart from dries.
 
The best of the bunch on the penultimate day

The best of the final day of the season weighed in at 2lbs 4ozs
 
As mentioned at the start: I struggled to tear myself away from the river at the end of the final day. I'm sure that it would of been easier if sport had been slow and the weather miserable, but it wasn't and it just didn't feel like the end of the season. We've had a great Trout season in Eden though, so I can't complain. Long, dry spells and very low rivers have made it tough at times but the right methods in the right areas have produced very good results, and I have no doubt that we have a very healthy trout population at the moment. Let's hope for the same in 2015....

A nice Eden Grayling caught in late September
 
And now it's Grayling time.... reports from various parts of the river are very positive. Some areas have been slower than others, although - and I hope it's not wishful thinking - I'm putting that down to low rivers and higher water temperatures. The long awaited rains have arrived and we've had two or three good lifts in water level since the end of the trout season which will, I hope, give the Salmon anglers a flurry of activity before their season ends on the 14th October. The fresh water in the system should bring water temperatures down to a more seasonable level, which will suit the Grayling, so I'd like to think that we should have some good sport to look forward to. I'll certainly be giving it a good go....

2 comments:

Peter said...

Hi Geoff
always enjoy your updates. Very pleased to see the youngster out on the water too. Its a beautiful part of the Eden that you fish. We could have done with the recent rain a little earlier in the year, but that's fishing
tight lines

Steven Dawson. said...

Great sum up of the season Geoff, enjoyed our few hours on your birthday, must meet up again soon.
Steven.