My 5th outing on the Dove this season, with Glen guiding again, today’s focus being nymph fishing.
After all the low water there has been it was great to see that the river had benefited from the recent rain and was running much higher than I have seen it previously and carrying a bit of colour. I set up my rod with a Fulling Mill Tactical Presentation Leader, using the Orange Braid section as the sighter with about 6ft of level leader added (Stroft ABR 0.12mm). A dropper was then added 2ft above the point. The point fly was a heavyish beaded nymph with a smaller and lighter shrimpy looking pattern on the dropper.
As we worked our way up the beat from the car park the river certainly looked different than the last time I visited. Confidence was high as we were much less likely to be spooking the fish today as had been the problem during the period of low water.
The first few runs saw me get in all sorts of tangles as I tried to cope with the surrounding vegetation and trying to cast the weighted nymphs with no fly line. It always seems to take me a while to start fishing half decently, but with Glen’s guidance things gradually improved. The first fish I caught gave me all sorts of problems as the knot connecting the long level section of the leader to the tapered section kept getting stuck in the top couple of rod rings. After eventually landing the fish the tapered section was removed and we experienced no further problems with knots.
It wasn’t too long before we landed the first of several good grayling from a run that a few days ago would have been only inches deep.
More fish followed on a regular basis with the grayling outnumbering the trout quite heavily.
However we did manage this trout from the head of Pike Pool, a place I always feel likely to give up a fish or two.
This was a nice trout and had some beautiful bright red spots on it’s adipose fin, very distinctive should I be lucky enough to catch it again.
After working our way upstream we again arrived at the Temple, which is well positioned as a resting place for lunch and a fresh cup of coffee.
After lunch we fished the run just above the Temple which has consistently produced fish this season and once again we were not let down with several grayling coming from that short stretch, most of them to the dropper which had out fished the point fly for most of the day.
Whilst fishing this run we were joined by Andy Heath, the river keeper. Andy showed us some of the items he had added to the Temple, replicas of the type of equipment that would have been used in the days of Cotton and Walton.
These included a 13’ Wych Elm rod, spliced in two places and breakable in the middle (which is the only thing that makes it different from the rods that Cotton and Walton would have used)
There was also a line spinner with samples of horse hair and a horse hair leader.
I tried out the rod, but used a modern leader rather than the horse hair. Unfortunately I didn’t catch anything, which may have been a blessing in disguise.
After our enjoyable short delve into the past it was back to the ‘proper’ fishing and we tried several of the nice runs that Andy has created in the upper part of the beat.
Some of the runs have been created by simply breaching a wier, others by infilling with limestone 'chippings' to narrow the channel as well as producing some great spawning beds.
It was in one of these runs that we caught the best fish of the day.
A lovely 43cm grayling ...
A nice fish, my best grayling of the year so far, but things may not stay that way for long I hope!
Thanks Glen (and Andy), a perfect way end to the day ......