Thursday, October 18, 2012

Wettest summer for 100 years !!

What a summer it's been - the wettest in 100 years with one big water after another restricting time on the river.
It hasn't been all doom and gloom though, although many have complained about a poor season and very few good rises, which was true for the dry fly anglers, I have to admit that I have had a great season on river and lake, although my success on the river has been mainly to the nymph.
All the rain kept our lakes high and water temperatures down so the trout fed hard and good numbers came to the artificial on some outings.



The Mayfly were about two weeks late this year but the trout didn't take too long to get onto them and two of my favourites for this time - the Olive Ullswater Muddler and The Slipper attracted quite a bit of attention.


 

The extra water and fluctuating levels seemed to kill off any chance of a decent hatch so daytime dry fly sport was virtually non-existent. In these situations it never pays to be a 'one method man' and searching with nymphs, spiders or, occasionally, the duo, often saves the day and produced some excellent sport when the rivers were at a fishable level for both myself and the few clients that did manage a day on the water with me.


Evening sport was a disappointment, I never witnessed one fall of spinners and the Blue Winged Olives and Sedge hung on until the death before making a very brief appearance - the hatch would normally start right on dark and last about twenty minutes before the river switched off for the night. There were times when, with a mixed hatch of upwings and various species of sedge the fish seemed to change from the emerger, to the dun, to the sedge in a very short window. I remember one night in particular when, just as I was thinking nothing was going to happen, the river began to boil with rising fish, I got a couple on a shuttlecock nymph, then they wouldn't look at it, a few to the Dun, then they wouldn't look at it, a few to the sedge then the river switched off - all in the space of about twenty minutes.
 

It's Grayling time now on the Eden system, so here's hoping we have a drier winter than we've had summer and get plenty of time to chase our 'Lady of the stream'