April days (part 2)

We had a decent spell of April sunshine during the third week of the month, which was perfect for Steve and Sue's visit to Eden and their very first go at fly fishing. They both coped very well on their debut - and both managed fish....

We saw our first Grannom (Brachycentrus subnubilis) of the year on Roland's day on the Eden. The Grannom love a bit of sunshine and given the right conditions these early season sedges can hatch in their thousands. They provide a good feed for our fish, but the adults are normally on the wing pretty quick, giving the trout little time to snaffle them. You do see fish sipping away at the odd vulnerable soul that struggles to break free of the pupal shuck, but I think the majority of fish concentrate on easier pickings: thousands of pupa ascending up through the water column. 

This seemed to be the case for Roland. There was the odd riser that proved difficult to tempt so we changed to a team consisting of a Grannom pupa on point and spiders on the droppers. This combination did the trick and provided chances and fish throughout the afternoon.

Grannom were still hatching on Doug's day, but with no activity at the surface we had to concentrate on sub-surface offerings to get any action

Hatches of Olive Uprights (Rhithrogena semicolorata) and Iron Blue duns (Alainites muticus) arrived hot on the heels of the Grannom and I was fortunate to hit a hatch of all three on a day off from guiding. The Iron blues were heavily outnumbered by Olive Uprights and the fish weren't slow in turning onto the latter. A good number of trout and a few out of season grayling came to Olive Upright emerger and dun imitations throughout the session....

The weather started to deteriorate towards the end of the month and threatened to spoil things for a group of first-time Eden visitors. We were lucky though, and the spell of wet weather failed to bring the river up too much.

Day one saw the group fishing a slowly-rising river. A trickle of Olive Uprights failed to entice any fish to the surface, but sub-surface offerings did the trick and all either caught, or had the chance of fish. The river leveled out for day two and although a touch coloured, it was still fishable. Sport was a touch slow in the morning but an afternoon hatch of Olive Uprights brought fish onto the feed. Nymphs and spiders produced offers and a few late afternoon risers responded well to dry offerings. I think/hope all left happy after a positive introduction to our great river....

Pete shows off  an Olive Upright feeder tempted to his dry imitation

The wet and cold end to April has continued into May. Let's hope it's just a minor blip and things will improve soon. It seems to have put paid to the Black Gnat falls for now. It will be interesting to see if they're just delayed, or, as in 2013, we'll have to wait until the end of August for the main fall....Either way, they'll come when they're ready and we'll have good fishing to look forward to when they do....