Thursday, March 19, 2015

We're off...our trout season begins in Eden

As I'd feared after the previous Thursday's rain and subsequent lift in levels; my options were limited for opening day. 
We're lucky in this part of the world though. We have a main river - The Eden - that's approximately 90 miles long. Then we have it's main tributary the river Eamont which is fed by the river Lowther, Dacre beck and Ullswater. We also have smaller rivers - the Petteril, Lyvennet, Leith and Troutbeck - flowing into the Eden. With all this choice it's rare that you can't find somewhere to cast a line, and so it was on opening day. Most rivers were a touch too big and so was my chosen destination - but it was fishable.
I didn't rush to the river as I would have many years ago. While we remain on GMT our spring olives will be hatching around lunchtime or shortly after, depending on the weather, so I left home at 10:00 for a 10:30 - 11:00 start. On opening day they started to trickle off at 12:40 but they didn't manage to stir many fish. Only two in fact: one rose twice and took the nymph I cast to it and the other rose three times, by the time I'd changed to a dry it had stopped and despite me waiting and a procession of duns drifting over the area it had been in, it never came up again. 
The lack of surface activity was certainly made up for by plenty of action to my sub-surface offerings and the nymph produced fish throughout the afternoon...





With their closed period only a day old, even an out of season Grayling joined in the fun


The rivers were still a touch big on the second day of our new season and this time the olives graced us with a show at approximately 13:00. This and one fish sticking it's head out of the water prompted a change to a pair of our North Country spiders and a nymph. My all-time favourite 'The Waterhen Bloa' took the dropper positions and my 'Olive nymph' went on the point. While the Large Dark Olives (Baetis rhodani) trickled off throughout the afternoon my team produced a steady stream of fish, and offers, with the nymph scoring slightly better than the rest...


It's been a good start to our season in Eden. I even saw my first March Browns (Rhithrogena germanica) of the year on the 18th. This is the earliest that I've seen them since they've started to reappear on the parts of the Eden system that I frequent. Last year I had to wait until the 31st March before I saw my first and the year before it was early April. Hopefully this bodes well and next time I'm out the trout will be on these meaty morsels.... 


Friday, March 13, 2015

Nearly there...

The 2015 trout season kicks off in Eden this Sunday, 15th March.
Like many others: I was really looking forward to the big day, and I still am, but now - after last night's rain - with a touch of trepidation. Rain swept through our region overnight and this morning the Environment Agencies gauge at Temple Sowerby showed that the Eden had risen to approximately two metres.




Although the river is on the turn now, there's another band of rain forecast to sweep through today. If it's not too much I'm still hopeful that the river will clear and be at a fishable level for Opening day.... 

Fishing on the 15th has become a bit of a tradition for me over the years and I've had to wet a line somewhere, irrespective of what the elements have tossed our way. Wind, rain, snow, I've braved it all - other than a raging flood - and quite often, so have our hardy early upwings. On past outings I've stood on the banks getting coated in snow and watched a trickle of Large Dark Olives sailing down the river. More often than not on these cooler, damper early season days, they'll manage an unmolested drift downstream and out of sight. The trout usually have more sense than us (me and the flies) and keep their heads down, ignoring what appears to be easy pickings as the freshly hatched duns struggle to take to the wing. But they'll often respond well to the sub-surface fly. Up here in the North of England that usually means a team of well presented North Country Spiders...or the nymph.


On any favourable/milder days since mid-February, I've witnessed light hatches of LDO's and a few relatively plump, and fit - for the time of year - trout have been coming to the nymph on recent grayling forays, so I'd like to think that all bodes well for some early season sport....

A trout from opening day 2012

The only fish of opening day 2013 taken in a short session on a rising river

One of many taken on a mixture of nymphs and spiders on opening day 2014

Tight lines to all for the coming season and let's hope it's as good as 2014....

And if you don't get as many fish as you'd like...fishing is not all about catching fish....'Every day on the water is a good day, and every year that you can fish is a good year'