It’s finally here. The long winter of forced abstinence has lifted and we’re once allowed back onto the small streams which we love so much.
The excitement, in all honesty, had been building since the previous October, but the final week had been an almost torturous affair, with time grinding to a halt seeming to make the last and final week seem like almost four.
My gear had been checked several times throughout the week for this one event; heavy 5-weight reels removed from my fishing pack and it’s winter fishing adventures, to be replaced with smaller, and much more ‘at home’ 3-weights. The cane rod, which I had lovingly hung safely in it’s soft rod-sock five months ago at the back-end of the last season was removed, the smell of cane seeming to mark this special occasion magically. Small stream fly boxes had been re-stocked during the winter days where grayling fishing was called off due to bad weather, and the odd fly re-designed or tweaked slightly in order to give that little bit extra floatability.
The green-light was glaringly bright for the coming weekend, and the levels of excitement were barely contained. Weather forecasts were double and triple-checked, and all looked good, if not a little cold, but that didn’t matter. This weekend would see my first fishing trip of the new trout season, and I aimed to enjoy every minute it by visiting two favourite and stunningly beautiful small wild streams.
Welcome, all, to the 2010 Trout Season.
Saturday 6th March 2010
The season had actually started three days earlier but a mess-up on my part in forgetting to book annual leave on the holiest day in the trout angler’s year work commitments meant I was unable to subject myself to the First Day’s optimistic fishing.
Today I planned to start the new season in the same way I start every season: on my home stream. If you know me, you’ll know what stream I’m talking about, if you don’t, sorry, tough luck. Needless to say, it’s a personal stream, and one which must be special enough in order for me to want to start the season there. It’s a beautiful stream, and one which seems to bring wondrous memories to the fore every time someone so much as utters her name.
It’s a place of true beauty, but her environs and character can be unforgiving towards those unwilling to work hard for the rewards. Located at the bottom of steep ravines and valleys sides, and a place which seems to be largely ignored it’s local inhabitants; which is quite fine with me. Casting can be tricky with the overhanging and fly-devouring branches of summer, although the withered looking branches of winter prove less of an obstacle.
Meeting up with a similarly-manic-grinning Mostyn at a gentle 9am start, we both set to tackling up with a nice whiskey-laced coffee. Soon we were hiking into the valley below, our energy renewed by the warming affects of the whiskey, and after inspecting more than a mile of our home stream, we were at a riffle-headed pool and casting a dry fly; the sounds and sights seeping in and us two realising just exactly what we’d missed. Like a long, contented exhale, we were back home.
Like wide-eyed boys frozen with awe, we enjoyed the chilly morning and it’s lack of fish; cane rods gently placing dry fly after dry fly on the stream waters throughout the day with not one inspection from a trout.
The day was cold, but we two anglers persevered with our first day’s trout fishing on the small stream. Conditions could have been better, what with the devilishly cold easterly wind taking regular bites at us, however, we both carried on fishing with dry flies in spite of it all.
The fish? They failed to materialise, even after fishing over three miles of water, but we were happy to be back on our beautiful home stream and casting a dry fly. Add to that a lunch of pork pies, scotch eggs and more hot coffee, and we pushed on further into the day, destined to lose, but enjoy it we would.
Sunday 7th March 2010
Sunday, and day #2 of the bitingly cold weekend.
11am saw me happily tackling up in one of the ‘New Club’s parking spots and waiting for the form of Mike to materialise. The eagerness of Spring to begin could be noted during the frosty morning as green shoots were present on the branches in front of me and the crisp white petals flowering by my feet.
Once said American had arrived, we made our way to the water and began our scrutiny of this gin clear paradise we are now both new members of. Spotting a shoal grayling moving away from us sparked our early enthusiasm, and we both split up and entered the stream at separate locations in order to begin our day’s fishing.
Out of sight, and sitting gently on the bank, my rod was strung and a size #18 para-adams tied on. A further few minutes of observation and I began my searching of the run I had entered. Again, and after fishing nymphs for the majority of the winter, I was determined to continue with the dry fly, but again, conditions would win out.
Fishing nearly a mile of spectacular looking water (a water I’m really looking forward to fishing this coming summer) and my selection of dry flies had not been looked at, despite the healthy flow of LDOs floating past my knees at around 1pm.
Eventually, I conceded defeat, made my way down stream with Mike, and switched to a single nymph, and that’s when I landed my first grayling of the day…followed by four more. We had found a shoal, and it was fairly easy to catch a few fish from it before things when quiet again.
The end of the day, and the fish tally equalled six grayling and zero trout, but that was fine by me, after all, it meant I was still in with a chance of catching my first trout of the season on my home stream.
