Searching

I was limited to two short sessions over the weekend , on
Friday I met up with Phil for a couple of hours and I also
managed to do the same Sunday with Mike . I had decided
on trying to target bigger fish and so had tied some flies
of a bigger size ,these consisted of some more Peeping Caddis
this pattern is fast becoming the number one fish taker for
me at the moment , it may be a confidence thing but it seems
a real killer. Searching was what I intended these short sessions
to entail .
With that in mind I tied some up on Partridge 10s sure hold
Lightning Barbless , the hook is for Dry's but I use it for all my
wets at the moment I just love it and it works a treat.
I also incorporated the largest Gold head I had , in my quest
to search the depths of the deeper pools . A few Woolly Buggers
made up the rest a couple on size 8's . These are the biggest flies
that I have targeted river Brown Trout with .



On the Friday evening I once more arrived in the middle
of a hatch , Phil had taken a few fish and the temptation
was to put a little F-fly on and fish the dry , I can become
quite obsessed doing this but managed to resist . So on
went the Peeping Caddis with the Wooly as the dropper.
The dropper was slightly the heavier fly but I wanted to
make sure they fished deep and bumped along the
bottom , in faster water I can fish down and across as well
as up steam allowing me to cover all possible holding areas .
Carefully wading above the first spot I dropped in a short
cast and let the line swing round , a sharp bang and the first
fish was on it gave me a good fight and a better feeling of
achievement it was slightly above the average size breaking
the pound mark around 13in .
I thought I had cracked it but although a few more fish found
the net they were all average under a pound about 10in long.
The other thing was the large amount of bumps and pulls
without making a hook up that I seemed to encounter.
Once more we had enjoyed our evening and made our
way back to the cars , Phil now looks quite at home on the
fly and is spotting areas that he would have walked past
months ago , now he drops down and takes fish.
On the Sunday I met up with Mike he had also had a fish
when I arrived , following him down the Mill Race with the
same team and set up I was soon into a Brownie , again
what I would class as a average fish but very welcome none
the less . I had come with the same intention of Searching
the depths for a bigger fish , no doubt I was probably missing
out on more smaller fish and who knows maybe bigger ones
as well ? I took one more on this set up and dropped another
with a hook pull , my luck ran out on a snag leaving just the
dropper .
Mike pointed out a fish rising at the bottom of the pool.
Removing the Dropper I popped on a F-fly 20's again it was
tied on the Partridge hook .


Making my way below the fish I waited , I was ready for a
little change from the wet tactics and this gave me a some
light relief .
After a few casts and no response I rested it for a while the
fish soon rose again , I had not seen any flies coming off so
stuck with my original pick , I thought I may get another
couple of casts and runs past with the fly before I put its
head down ,second cast and the fish rose I struck and felt
the reassuring resistance , when I held it it was again very
Sea Trout looking a nice little fish .
Mike was busy catching and he is now fishing the fly well
he had five fish , all downstream , a method he is now more
than adequate at , his general watercraft as allowed him to
pick up this Fluff Chucking stuff very quickly ,we just need
the conditions for him to take on the dry .
Like all the fish we catch retuning them after a quick snap
is very rewarding. This was another Silver fish .
As we left the river was colouring up and rising slightly .
My thoughts are of what to try next I'm sure the river holds
some big Brownies , the one I had last week was well over two
pound and it was the length of my net , the fisherman in me
imagines the possibility of a large Trout lurking in the river
just waiting for me to find the rite fly and method to hook it
who knows maybe next time !