Out of luck on the Eamont.

Over the last few years I have spent most of my spare time in the beautiful Eden Valley, fishing the parent river and her tributaries. This year however, has seen me posted in Liverpool through the working week so evening sessions have been restricted in range to more local spots.
Tonight though, with midsumer only a few weeks away, I decided to make the 110 mile drive from Merseyside up to Penrith for a couple of hours on the delightful Lower Eamont - my first visit of the season.

Was it worth it? Well yes and no. It's always a pleasure to fish this area and I caught a few trout tonight, but in truth I was a bit knackered after the day at work and the long drive, and I didn't fish with any real conviction. Probably best to save such a trip for a full day, so that it can be appropriately savoured.

There were all sorts of insect groups on the water this evening - caddis, olives, gnats and stoneflies. Many different species were represented, but few in any great number. The result was a few rising fish.....and a bit of a guessing game as to what they were targeting. I plumped for gnats and set about them with a small black klinkhamer. This brought moderate success with several nice little trout of 10-12".

However, I dropped the best two fish of the evening a few seconds after hooking them, leaving me rueing my luck. I don't believe I did anything particularly wrong, they just threw the hook. That's just how it goes sometimes.
The latter of the two fish was a real stonker. He rose as delicately as a parr and I was certain he would be small.......until I lifted the rod and suddenly found line peeling off my reel at an alarming rate as the fish charged off toward far bank cover. I had him turned and back under control, when......nothing; my soggy klinkhamer came back to me minus one big trout!

That knocked the wind out of my sails somewhat, and I saw out the remainder of daylight thinking about what might have been instead of concentrating on my fishing.
Even so, this brief session reminded me how much I love the area and I look forward to doing it justice with a full day sometime soon.

No photos tonight sorry - I forgot the camera.

Arthur's Pike.

Arthur's Pike is one of my favourite places. It's a modest sized fell in the eastern lake district with little to commend it to hill-walkers in general. It does however, occupy a fantastic position above Ullswater and the views up the valley from the cairn on its Western edge, are nothing short of breathtaking.........if you catch it on a good day!

The last few times I have visited this special place, I have been scuppered by hill fog and/or rain. Today it was heat haze which foreshortened the view......

To make up for the lack of photographic opportunity, I messed around with the macro function on my camera to take some interesting close-ups of lichen, rock and moss; and later on at the bottom of Aik Beck, I turned a few stones to reveal some dark little clinger nymphs.

Wild garlic, bluebells.....and a few fish!

Spring is now in full swing and the countryside has been transformed in a matter of days. The balmy weather this week is more charactaristic of mid summer than early May and is the first prolonged warm sunny spell of the season. There were signs of it beginning to break today though - it has been humid and overcast and the air has been charged with the promise of thunder. All day at work I thought about getting to the waterside and it seemed an eternity until I was finally able to escape and speed north towards my little piece of paradise.

It has been an interesting evening, although there are no remarkable events to recount. Even so, it has been a pleasure to fish slowly through the pools, paying more attention to my surroundings than to the task in hand. No matter, I've returned a few fish, missed quite a few more offers, and generally had a fine time of it!

I started off with a pair of nymphs - caddis pupa and pheasant tail - and was quickly rewared with a small grayling from the first run. A few more fishless minutes however, persuaded me to change to a single klinkhamer: although nothing much was rising, I had the feeling that the fish might respond to the seaching dry fly. This worked out about right and the klink never left the cast for the remainder of the session, apart from a couple of size and colour changes.

There was plenty of insect activity over the water - gnats, hawthorns, midge, caddis and an odd medium olive were all in evidence, but none in sufficient numbers to induce a rise of any kind. The klinkhamer tends to cover all bases in this situation and I'm always surprised by the number of times a fish will appear from nowhere to hit the fly. Worked along the current seams, a black or dark tan number did the trick regularly enough to keep things exciting.

As I worked my way upstream, trout and grayling both put in an appearance and I finished up with half a dozen of each, generally around the 12" mark, but with one better grayling of about 1lb 12oz (this beat seems to hold a lot of these big 'ladies').

To be honest, I didn't fish well. For every fish hooked, I missed another couple of offers; but on an evening like this, it didn't matter. I was just happy to be out in the warmth and with the aroma of wild garlic and hawthorn blossom heavy in the air.

I fished right through until an hour after sundown when I swung a team of spiders back through the pools downstream, but the period passed without event, other than the loud splashes made by one or two large sea trout which have made it into the river.

It was pitch black by the time I got back to the car and feeling as warm as it had in the afternoon. A classic summer evening and I hope there are many more like it to come.......

Incidentally, this is North Country Angler's 100th post since I started nearly two years ago. If anyone has resisted boredom long enough to still visit occasionally, then thanks for looking. Who knows, I might even manage another 100 posts!

It's grim up north......

In writing up my Esthwaite report, I realise I may have somewhat glossed over how picturesque this location is. The weather was close and still on Sunday, and a thin mist lifted slowly from the water through the morning, lending a strangely eerie atmosphere to the place.

Sometimes it's easy to get carried away with catching fish and not take the time to sit back and properly admire one's surroundings. The above photograph says it all though. As I've written many times since starting this blog, we northerners are indeed lucky to have places such as this within easy reach - places which have the power to transport us so far from the heave-ho of modern living that, at least for a few hours, a true inner peace can be attained.

My La'al Ratty.

Above is the spectacular view across Torver to the Old Man and Dow Crag, which greeted us this morning as we drove towards Ravenglass on the west Cumbrian coast. It has been a beautiful day, the first real summer day of the year, and we spent it over in Eskdale, taking our little boy on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway - La'al Ratty as it's commonly known.

This miniature steam engine puffs away alongside the River Mite, through fantastic scenery, towards Dalegarth near Boot at the bottom of the Hardknott road. It's a great way to get into the heart of Eskdale and the kids love it - ours certainly did! George went into full toddler excitement meltdown for the whole journey and tired himself out to such an extent that he was fast asleep within 30 seconds of setting off in the car for home.......

A couple of photos of the little devil are below. He's great fun at the moment and every day with my family is a joy. I'm trying hard not to let it pass too fast - it seems only yesterday that he was a little baby, and now look at him!

Three men in a boat!

Dad and I were accompanied today by our friend Patrick Arnold for a day on Esthwaite, one of the north's top commercial trout fisheries. We had a superb day here last April - in persistant rain, we managed to return over 50 fit rainbows to buzzer and nymph techniques. I'm pleased to say that we had an equally exciting day today in much more pleasant conditions.

The trip should actually have taken place two weeks ago, but we rearranged due to freezing cold easterly winds. Following today's events, I'm glad we did. For the previous few weeks, the fishery has been producing well, but the sport has mainly been to sunk line lure tactics. Luckily for us, the milder weather of the last couple of days encouraged some midge to hatch, bringing the fish into the top couple of feet of the water column. As a result, it was possible to find sport with floating line and nymphs.

The hatch was fairly light and well dispersed, consisting mainly of big, brown buzzers. In the calm conditions, fish seemed to be quartering back and forth at speed, mopping up the emergers in a leisurely fashion, so it was difficult to correctly judge the direction of travelling fish at times. However, when we got it right and put the flies in the right place, a take usually followed - particularly if a little movement was imparted to mimic the ascending of the pupae in the water.

With Patrick's boat handling and knowledge of the water, we moved around to keep in touch with the fish and were able to catch steadily all day. The successful tactic seemed to be a long-ish leader with a team of diawl bachs/buzzers, although I did particularly well with a cruncher after lunch. We finished up with around 50 fish to the boat - a most satisfying return reflecting a truly excellent day's sport. The fish were of high quality and fought like demons - a real credit to the fishery - although ironically my best of the day (a silver 5lb-er), was the only fish to exhibit 'stewpond nibbling' of the tail.

A word about the fishery; stocked waters aren't really my thing, but this is one of the best I've visited. Fishery manager David Coleman and his staff have put an awful lot of effort into this picturesque venue over the years and it shows. As well as the quality of the fish and boats, it's clear that much is done to encourage youngsters and newcomers to the sport. It was nice to see a few Bank Holiday parties of 'lads and dads' having fun in the any method south basin and there were plenty of smiling young faces lining the bank of the beginners pond. It would be churlish of more experienced anglers to resent their presence on the fishery and I for one think the management deserve the utmost credit for trying to encourage youngsters into our wonderful sport.

Next year, according to EA directives, Esthwaite will become a Brown Trout only water. It will be stocked with triploid browns only, in the hope of lifting the in and outflow nets and re-establishing migratory fish runs through the system. What the effects on the fishery will be is difficult to say, but this is one angler who will be keen to return to find out.....

A thanks to Patrick also! It's always a pleasure to meet up with this committed and knowledgeable man. I have previously extolled his virtues for anglers visiting the Lake District and in need of guidance, and have no hesitation in doing so again. He can be contacted at patrickarnold@englishlakesflyfishing.co.uk

Slow going.....and hailstones.

Although the weather isn’t exactly balmy, the last week or so has seen spring finally take a firm grip hereabouts. The beeches have exploded into leaf, creating splashes of bright lime mist amongst the more mundane green of the hawthorn. As I drove to the river this evening, the clouds scudded by, a hundred different shades of grey, a traditional English ‘Constable’ sky, and I felt happy to be alive.
For all the ills and shameful decline of this once proud country, at this time of year there is no place I would rather be.

Unfortunately, tonight the angling failed to live up to expectations. There was little in the way of fly life on the water and the fish stayed deep. I was still hopeful of sport to the nymphs (the river was up a foot and carrying a faint tinge of colour), but it was not to be - 3 half pounders were the only rewards for my hard graft, with a bonus fish of a pound falling in near darkness.

Grayling and Grannom in the Ribble Valley.

It's far too early in the year to expect consistent evening sport on our rivers, but I was very lucky tonight. My visit coincided with a substantial hatch of grannom sedge which ensured some sport with trout and large out of season grayling.

It would have been nice just to get out and walk the banks tonight, regardless of whether I caught or not. Spring seems to have just about arrived and the many signs I saw all about gave my spirits a much needed lift after the long winter; the sandpipers and sandmartins have returned and the sun was warm enough to allow me to fish in shirt sleeves right up to darkness.

And of course there were the grannom - for me, no hatch of fly better sums up spring river fishing in this part of the country. These little caddis are the first to appear on our streams and their flight is all too brief, lasting a couple of weeks at the rear end of April. Sometimes I get lucky with a visit which coincides with an emergence, sometimes not.... happily on this occasion, it was the former.

The egg-bearing females tend to crawl underwater to lay, using any partially submerged object they can find - and that includes a wading angler. They crowded around me in swarms tonight, crawling down my waders to the river bed. The longer I stood still, the more of them I attracted until I must have looked like some strange bee-keeper!

The only other insect evidence I could find, were the empty shucks of some stoneclinger nymphs (most likely brook duns or uprights), so I put up a two fly cast of shaggy caddis pupa on the dropper, and a clinger nymph on the point. Unsurprisingly though, it was the caddis that proved the winner, taking all but the last fish of the evening (more of that later....).

So working upstream in bright sunshine and clear water conditions, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself attracting some interest. Two nice trout of 12" apiece were first to oblige, before a tired post-spawning cock grayling of around 2lb came to hand. In the next pool, a good fish was lifting to the grannom in a distinct pattern of nothing for a couple of minutes, then two or three quick rises. I quickly swapped to a grizzly emerger and covered the fish and when it took first pass, I lifted.....into thin air! This process was repeated a further two times, before the culprit decided he had seen enough of my comical efforts and disappeared.

Perseverence with the pupa then paid off further upstream when another trout and a cracking grayling of well over 2lb succumbed to its charms. The latter was in very good condition for the time of year and posed for a brief photo before returning to his watery home.

Darkness was beginning to fall now, so I put up a team of spiders and fished my way back downstream through a couple of likely spots, keeping the rod tip high and watching the bow in the fly line for lifts. This failed to produce a pull, so as I arrived back at a deep pool near the car, I decided to try one last throw of the dice. Purists please look away now:

Since watching on Ollie Edwards DVD on the subject, I have been curious about the use of lures on rivers (streamers or baitfish patterns, if you prefer!), and have had one eye on giving the method a go to see what it could dredge up from the deeper pools where 'conventional' fly fishing techniques cannot be employed. There is no doubt that these spots can hold some of the largest trout in the river and I intend to see if I can nail one or two of them this season......provided no-one else is watching!

Anyway, initial impressions are positive after a brief experiment this evening. As darkness fell, I put up an olive woolly bugger (minnow maybe?) and hurled it across the dissipating current and into the black depths beyond. On the second cast I received an almighty wallop as a fat brownie of about 1lb attacked the lure with venom; the final fish of an enjoyable evening, and certainly providing some food for thought.

Some thoughts on Bob Wyatt and Snowshoe Hare.

Over the winter, I have had the pleasure of reading 'Trout Hunting' by Bob Wyatt, and I can honestly say that it is the best book on contemporary trout fishing I have yet encountered. Angling literature tends to fall into one of two fields; the purely instructive or the evocative and subjective. I find Wyatt's book belongs in neither category, but is more an attempt to delve into the workings of the trout and finer points of progressive modern fly fishing.

Wyatt is clearly an intelligent and insightful angler - the theories he present are the result of experience and careful observation and seem to make perfect sense. I am going to try to take on board some of his suggestions, particularly with regard to fly design.

Wyatt has a fly - the deer hair emerger, a simple creation of deer hair and hare fur. Anglers north of the border may be more familiar with it than most as it is a pattern developed on the wild rivers and stillwaters of the highlands. The author is adamant as to its (and other 'no-hackle' emerger designs) devastating effectiveness. The guy is a respected angler and I have no reason to doubt him, but for my local waters, I would prefer a more ephemerid-orientated imitation. It seems the answer may be lurking amidst the colour plates of flies in the middle of the book - the snowshoe hare emerger.

My version of this pattern is shown above. So far this season I have found it to be absolutely deadly during hatches of large dark olives. The snowshoe hare fur floats like a cork and allows the fly to assume the correct attitude on the water - when it drifts down the current seams, it looks exactly like the surrounding duns. It can't be too bad from the fishes' perspective either as I have had very few refusals so far. I like the way the abdomen hangs suspended in the surface film, but without the fussiness created by the hackle on a klinkhamer type design.

It's very rare that a new pattern has instilled such confidence so quickly, but if the 'SHE' works so well in smaller sizes for hatches later in the season, it will have proved to be a revelation.

So thank you Mr. Wyatt, for a great book and just maybe, a great fly too!

Tying for 'SHE':

Hook: Varivas 2200 size 14-20.

Thread: 16/0 tan.

Rib: Olive Pearsalls silk.

Body: Masterclass dubbing #5 baetis pale watery.

Wing: Dun snowshoe hare foot.

Taking stock of Stocks' stocks.

My rainbow trout education continues; after a fine day on Bigland at the weekend I teamed up with mate Rob for a day's boat fishing on the mighty Stocks Reservoir.

This 300+ acre water is daunting to say the least. I've fished it from the bank a couple of times, but never from a drifting boat - I just wouldn't know where to start. Luckily Rob is a regular and knows the place better than I know my wife! Add the fact that he is a superb angler with fine boat handling skills, and I knew I was in good hands.

The day dawned a chilly one. Broken cloud was pushed along by a stiff easterly which promised hard going and numb fingers. Luckily, we managed to find a few more sheltered drifts and it became immediately apparent that although fish might not be crawling up the rod, there was certainly a bit of action to be had.

Rob opted for the Di-3 and a team of mini-lures and was quickly into fish, mainly to a small JC Viva. It was less straightforward for me however. Soon after starting to fish, it became obvious to me why the reservoir man needs a variety of different line densities. I've always got by from the bank with a floater or slime line - counting down the latter for anything up to a minute if the feeding depth of the fish requires it. This tactic just doesn't work when afloat though; leaving the line to sink quickly results in slack line piling up beneath the drifting boat, so once cast the retrieve must begin straight away. Finding the feeding depth therefore becomes purely a matter of correct line density selection.

I know this might sound obvious to a more experienced angler, but it caught me out for sure. My only real option was to rig up a team of buzzers/nymphs on a 20' leader and let the heavier point fly take the team down while retrieving just fast enough to keep in touch. This allowed me to obtain a bit of depth.....but not movement. Rob was attracting regular offers by imparting brisk movement and then a 'hang' to his flies - it was no surprise then, that most of my takes came whilst lifting the team through the water to go into a roll cast. I found it all very interesting....and a little baffling!

As the day progressed, Rob showed me some of his favourite drifts (when they weren't obstructed by anchored boats), and we picked up fish steadily if not spectacularly. The quality of fish was excellent with hard fighting browns rainbows and blues up to around 3lb coming to the boat.

There are some really big fish to be had here (a rainbow of over 22lb was landed later on), but we didn't contact any of the leviathans. The numbers proved pleasing though - 21 fish between us (13 of which were Rob's) made us top boat for the day and kept the fingers from completely seizing up in the bitter wind. More importantly, I learned a lot about the basics of reservoir fishing and returned to dry land with a very numb backside, but enlightened as to the meaning of the terms 'on the hang', 'on the wind', and 'the Rutland Bend'!

So, it's on to Cumbria's Esthwaite fishery that I next travel - a venue of proportions somewhere between Stocks and Bigland - and the final part in my trilogy of stocked stillwater adventures this week. Will I be left rueing my inadequate selection of sinking lines once more?

Bathing Spink.

There is definitely a more spring-like feel in the air today. The hedges are greening up nicely and the new growth of wild garlic, dog's mercury and bluebells carpet the woodland floor.

I took the above clip of a chaffinch bathing in Hareden Beck today. Around these parts we call them 'spinks' on account of their charactaristic call.......

Back at Bigland - with improved returns.

We last fished Bigland on an unseasonably balmy day back in February. Today, almost two months later, we returned to enjoy a productive day's fishing - albeit in much more uncomfortable conditions.

The weather over the last week has been a real case of 'April showers' and today was no different. A variable westerly kept temperatures down in single figures and occasional wintry showers lent a positively chilly feeling to the morning.

We expected to score with lures, and so it turned out. Apart from sporadic rises from cruising trout, there was very little surface activity. I managed to winkle three rainbows out on a suspender buzzer early on after I noticed a few big green midge hatching, but otherwise it was very much a case of lure-pulling on an intermediate line.

The sunk line tactics worked well though - I scored nine fit fish for the day and by the time I left my colleagues to it at 5pm, Taffy was on around the dozen and Steve was amongst the fish too - with the possibility of an evening rise still to come.

So an enjoyable session all round and a few welcome signs of spring; the surrounding woods were full of primroses and after lunch, a few swallows skimmed the water in search of hatching midge.

Amongst the fish at last!

I finally managed to get onto the river today for the first time since the new season opened, and that coupled with the fact that the day has been a particularly enjoyable one, means that this is a lengthy entry. I apologise if it becomes tedious.

Mick Wareing joined me on a guest ticket as we explored the club water on a mild day of low cloud and drizzle. After an overnight frost was forecast along with chilly easterly winds, it was a pleasant surprise to be greeted by near perfect conditions as we pulled on the waders and put up the rods. We were hopeful of some sport and sure enough, Mick found a few fish at the rear end of the first pool he tackled - 5 out of season grayling obliged to the pink bug.

I was soon in on the action too. In a crazy half hour, I returned 7 trout which were feeding on ascending olive pupae. The fish were all around the same size - 12-13" - and took the baetis nymph like it was the first food item they'd seen in weeks. Despite the fact that our water isn't stocked, I'm not entirely convinced that these fish weren't introduced, possibly by a club downstream of us. I include a couple of photos below so you can make your own mind up.....
















After a quick bite to eat, we set off upstream. I was hoping for a decent hatch of large dark olives and luckily enough, we got one. Dozens of the little upwings were clustering down the roily water at the head of one pool, only to be picked off by several fish which were stationed on the current seam just below. It was obvious that two or three of these fish were large - they were pushing a lot of water around as they swirled at the duns.

As Mick was still a few yards downstream, I had a crack at the nearest fish - it rose confidently to my snowshoe hare emerger and turned out to be another trout of around 1lb. Mick's turn next, and the same fly brought quick responses from an 8" trout and then a cracking brownie of 2lb 2oz.


There were still a few fish rising, so I stepped in and took a further two fish - a nice grayling and a trout of about 1lb 8oz.





















After that hectic period of action, things slowed right down. The olives petered out and rising fish became few and far between. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the upper half of the beat with only a small grayling added to the board. That didn't matter though - we had already had a fine day.

It's a fact that taking a friend onto your favourite water nearly always ends in failure and the need to make all sorts of excuses (you should have been here last week, it normally fishes well etc etc), so it was nice that Mick caught a few fish today, even more so that one was a particulary good 'un - it took the fly with a leisurely swirl...and then shot off so fast that it nearly pulled the rod out of Mick's hand!
Brilliant stuff and I can't wait to get back for more!

Still no fishing....and snow in April!

We are three weeks into the new trout season and I still haven't managed to wet a line yet - but with weather like we've seen today, it's little wonder.

The above photo was taken earlier, looking upstream from Musgrave Bridge while the snow fell all around. It was very pretty, but more akin to mid January than the first flushes of the new spring.

Hopefully, once this cold airstream passes, then we can look forward to some milder weather and pleasant days out on the river.

Further experimentation at the vice.

The messy little fly above is the result of some fiddling about I did this afternoon, whilst rueing the fact that our rivers are unfishable following heavy rain last night. It is basically a Griffiths' Gnat variant (example of original below - a fly I have the utmost confidence in), and I hope it may come in handy when small olives are on the water later in the season.

I think that I have been guilty of tying my imitations on the large size at times. If you examine a pale watery or small dark olive dun closely, they are in fact tiny insects and the footprints of my usual artificials are probably way too big. I'm determined to see what happens with more appropriately sized flies this year and hopefully banish my phobia of using tiny patterns for good. This is tied on a size 20 but should still be easily visible to my less than perfect eyes, owing to its heavily hackled nature...........