Versatility brings success

So much for getting out early in the New Year, I had to cancel a days fishing on the 2nd after checking the River Eden on New Years day and finding it dirty and rising and reading just over four foot on the gauge at Langwathby

Then plans were changed again on the 5th after rain on the 4th brought the river over the gauge which meant it was five foot plus, and dirty, and definitely not going to fish.

With the busy lives we all lead nowadays we can't always go fishing when we want to or when conditions are perfect, so in my opinion, to be a successful Trout and Grayling hunter you need to be versatile and be prepared to fish whatever the situation demands.

This means that you can no longer decide before you leave the house 'today I will be mainly fishing the dry fly' which you probably could have done some years ago when hatches were better and there were more fish in the rivers, although we do tend to look back through rose tinted glasses - from my recollections, going back some 30 odd years, it wasn't always great, although they were more regular and predictable than today, there were days when there was no hatch and apparently no fish in the river.

Hatches can still be relatively good on occasions and you may be surprised at how many fish are in the river when they are really 'up and at them', but we aren't always able to be on the water at the right time, so, to be successful you need to be able, and prepared, to fish spiders (upstream and down), upstream nymph, czech nymph, duo or New Zealand dropper, and streamers if necessary.

We will still have our favourite methods, my personal favourite has always and probably will always be the upstream nymph - I have always found it a very enjoyable method and there aren't many occasions when it doesn't produce results.

When it comes to the perfect rod for the versatile fly fisher, I think a 5 weight takes some beating, it's a good all round weight that will cope with most methods.