Wild browns on the River Darent

Had an hour on the river at lunch time today, between meeting the farmer about some fencing and heading home for a conference call. The crazy lives we lead!!

3 fish in an hour, all to adult Mayfly imitations. 

Life is good!

Mayfly madness on the Kennet

I was very lucky to get an invite from a very nice man to fish a very nice stretch (8 miles!) of the Kennet last Saturday... slap bang in the middle of the Mayfly season. Thanks Phil!

While tying on a spinner pattern a spinner lands on my hand!

Actually, while there were good numbers of duns coming off sporadically the main feature was a huge spinner fall that built from about 3:30 and peaked at about 7 in the evening. The week prior, Phil tells me, there were no spinners about and the fish were focussed on the intense dun emergence.

Long shallow riffle heaving with mayfly and rising fish...

I went for a pee in the woods mid afternoon and found myself in a massive mating column of mayfly. This video barely does justice to the density of the swarm.

Video of one of the mating columns

This fish ate a dun imitation and tore off upstream, I thought Phil would be spooled!

The spinner fall hots up

Iron blue spinner?

Amazingly, there were fish that were not on the mayfly but focussed on the sporadic olive/iron blue hatch (not sure which it was).

Close up of a piece of stream at the end of the spinner fall... unbelievable!

Atlantic Salmon, Brown Trout, Grayling- 3 salmonids, 5 days

First it was the salmon:

Mark working down "Hudley Bank" (I think) on Chesters Beat

It started last week Wednesday evening when I caught up with the rest of the crew at the cottage in Humshaugh on the North Tyne in Northumberland. Early the next morning I stepped into the river with a 14 foot 9 weight Double Handed fly rod. I was going after salmon with a fly for the first time in my 35 years of flyfishing...

my first salmon- a 14lb cock fish

the #12 Bann Special Shrimp did the business

Simon, Mark, Seth and Gary all nudged me in the right direction, explaining the fundamentals of taking lies, swings and other bits of apparently important technique... well it worked! The guys told me to tie lots of Bann Special Shrimps (BSS) in sizes 6-16 and they were spot on: the #12 did the trick.

The Bann Special Shrimp

1 fish in 2 and a half days of intense focus is apparently not bad given the low water conditions. We got 20 fish in total including sea trout to 9lbs and salmon to 18.

The salmon and sea trout populations of the Tyne have rocketed back from near annihilation after sewage works and chemical polluters in the lower estaurine stretch of the river in Newcastle were forced to behave due to new clean water laws a few decades ago. We fished patterns as small as 16's. I am amazed these huge predators will eat flies this small (and nothing else sometimes)... there is so much to learn about migratory salmonids.

Simon with a 4lb sea trout that became dinner

Then it was the high country Brown Trout:

The River Tees just below Cauldron Snout (highest waterfall in England?)... loaded with hungry wild browns

On Saturday afternoon, after a large fry up, I said good bye to the salmon crew, climbed in the Landy and drove up to the top of the Penines: camping and fishing far off the beaten track on the upper Tees.

the camping spot

It took some work to find a spot to hide the Landy and pitch tent but eventually I found somewhere sandwiched between reserve, reservoir and Ministry of Defence training ground.  It was a bit of a hike from my tent (which got hidden away at dawn) down Cauldron Snout to the Tees, but it was worth it!

Little, aggressive, Tees brownies.... no push overs though!

I caught a lot of fish, probably 50-100 in a day, but only when I got in the groove, working drifts into the lip of the current at the tail of the tiny pocket water or in currents passing bigger boulders.

Lunch of pork pie and ale went down bloody well after hours of hunched over stalking.

A magical combination!

the Red Grouse were everywhere, with their shrill "go back go back go back" call

The obligatory selfie :-)

And finally the grayling:

not a monster, but rewarding nonetheless

On Monday morning, after a few nights of solitude in the mountains I dropped down out of the Pennines and into Cumbria where I met my friend Jeremy Lucas in Appleby for a day on the River Eden. Jeremy put me onto 2 beats both of which produced trout and grayling. It was hard work with the river low and slow. Fish were showing and perfect drifts with #18-20 dries convinced them...

The first fish of this journey weighed 14lbs, the last one weighed 1.4lbs.... weird.

the last fish of my journey, 10 times smaller than the first fish

What an amazing week on the road, 5 full days of fishing.
We should all be taking these journeys regularly!

Norwegian Grayling... another world!

I've just returned from a week of outstanding grayling fishing on the mighty River Trysil in Norway with a great bunch of guys. The visual flashbacks to intense hatches with masses of rising fish are still coming fast and thick and hopefully will take a long time to recede!

A panoramic of a huge riffle and rapid on the Trysil

Back in February, when I was demo'ing at the British Fly Fair International I bumped into my Norwegian friend Ole Bjerke who used to be with Mustad and Partridge in the hook trade. Amongst other things Ole is now building up Gamefish.no to raise the profile of some of Norway's lesser known inland fishing. I've wanted to fish Norway for years and this was a perfect opportunity for me to access the right intelligence... so I asked Ole to tell me which river and which week would provide the best grayling fishing in Norway. A week later he emailed me the answer. Simply as that. I got a group of 5 of us together and off we went.

Blown away by the river on arrival! Anders the landowner, in the cap, shows us the 6 kms of river available to us.

Heptagenia Sulphurea- The Yellow Mayfly... the fish loved them!

I won't go into the detail of insect life and what hatches we experienced, you're welcome to contact me for that info: But I will mention that insect life is very healthy with significant diversity and population sizes and I've not seen such intense hatches of BWO's or Yellow Mayfly (Heptagenia Sulphurea) anywhere, ever and with fish so intently focussed on them.

Ephemerella Aurivilli and the imitation... the fish liked them too!

The Trysil River is huge, 80 meters across on average and with serious flows, just low enough for us to wade given the late snowmelt this spring. It was extremely clear. I watched grayling moving to dries like they were in an aquarium. The river is largely untouched other than a hydroelectric plant with a fish passage which is due an upgrade. Grayling populations are very strong and seem to be most dense in key areas with a lower density sprinkling of individuals in pretty much all habitat types. My favourite type of water for grayling is shallow, broad glides at the tails of pools.... and we found it in spades.

Shallow glides heaving with insects and rising grayling. An opportunity to produce cross-and-down drifts, one of my favourite techniques to reach distant fish I cannot wade to.

There are also a few brown trout about, we expect there are more we just need to figure them out. There are a few small lakes in the woods that are connected to the river by small streams, big enough for trout to run. Each lake has a population of highly adjusted trout that had us mesmerised...

John Grindle got this magnificently marked trout from one of the little woodland lakes.

One of the little lakes hidden in the woods, connect to the Trysil by a small stream, home to wily brownies!

We caught the majority of our fish on dries. Fly patterns most successful for me were the plume tip (an amazingly dependable producer in any BWO and LDO hatch anywhere in the world it seems) and a range of imitative emergers for the yellows and aurivilli. I had a great session one afternoon bugging in fast deep water with a huge single jig fly which produced 4 big grayling, but the dry fly was supreme.

My take on the Plume Tip... the pattern that produced the majority of my fish

One of the yellow may imitations I used to target the rising grayling in these hatches

We were fishing on Anders Nyhuus' land, this is a large area of woodland managed for lumber production through sensitive management of indigenous species (pine and spruce) and natural processes. More information on the fishing is here. Anders keeps the numbers down. There were 5 of us and we were the only people allowed to fish his 6km stretch of the river for the whole week. The fish experience effectively no pressure at all. We moved quickly and fished pretty hard and didn't manage to fish every piece of the river, although we visited each area for long enough earlier in the week so we could plan to focus on water that seemed most productive in the conditions (sunny, warm and lots of insects hatching). We experienced very few mosquitoes and biting black fly.... probably because we had regular winds.


The accommodation is a very comfortable log cabin which is appropriately rustic (although subtly well equipped, particularly in the kitchen) and it's very comfortable.

We caught a lot of fish, probably 150 at least. The grayling averaged 25-30cms at a guess. The biggest were around 40cms. There are bigger ones!

A larger than average Trysil grayling

The river flows through dense pine and spruce forest. Walking through it to reach the water is a magical experience. It really sets you up for some serious fishing.

One of the rare browns we encountered in the river... there must be more and bigger ones, we need to figure them out!

I have a rule, I'll never return to a river before I get through my list of those rivers I've yet to visit. To fish the Trysil again, at Vestsjoberget, I am breaking that rule.

classic glide water on a large scale in a pristine environment...

Thank you Ole and Anders.... you made me a very happy fishermen... see you next year!

a new shrimp pattern

in my preparation for Slovenia next month I wanted to produce a heavy, realistic and quick to tie shrimp. this is what i came up with...

simple, quick, rough, heavy

It's pretty rough-looking although sufficiently imitative I think. Have you seen  a shrimp "in the drift" or scampering across the substrate of a river? They're pretty rough looking. 

So how do I tie it? 

I start with a pre-leaded hook, the ones in the picture are on a Partridge scud hook that comes with a sausage-shaped lump of lead moulded to the shank.  I use some flat nose pliers to squash the lead thinner so it is narrower and taller. 

Next I wrap plumber's tape around the lead mould to give the thread something to find purchase on and to hide the lead. This is much quicker than wraps of thread and adds little bulk (you want the pattern to stay quite lean so it looks real and cuts through the water).

Then I take a few wraps of any white thread from eye to gape, tie in some latex, scud back or other elastic, clear stuff for a scud back. Now I tie in a small partridge feather by the tip, concave side up. Take thread back to eye and throw in a securing knot. 

Mark the plumber's tape with light coloured pens to taste (I used a sandy/tan/human skin tone on these).

Mark the dorsal side of the underbody with markers to taste, bring the partridge feather forward and tie off. Bring the scud back stuff forward and tie off. More marker on top of the scud back if you want. 

Position the partridge fibres (legs) so they're nicely spaced out.

Cover the the thing in a thin film of Bug Bond and show it the light!

Simple (honestly it takes less than 3 minutes per fly once you're up and running) and imitative. I'm going to need some good imitative patterns in Slovenia after the Worlds took place their last month, those fish are probably still wondering what hit them!

An amazing afternoon on the Stour

I was the lucky winner of one of the lots in the Wild Trout Trust auction. I bid on a few lots but the Stour was the one I wanted to win the most. I have been interested in visiting the Stour for a few years now after a number of people had told me such good things. The stretch I fished was really only a few meters wide in most places and suited my little 6' 10" 3wt perfectly.

hard fighting, red spotted brownies gulped adult mayfly patterns all afternoon...

I timed it in the hope of hitting the mayfly hatch and boy did luck go my way! I started fishing just after 1pm as the mayfly started coming off. The hatch got heavier and heavier and continued through the afternoon. It slowed a little for about 30 minutes mid afternoon and then the spinners started hitting the water. Duns coming off, spinners laying... it was mayhem. Early on the rises were sharp and powerful and required a stout 4.5lb tippett but by late afternoon most of the takes were extremely slow and subtle. It was almost painful watching the fish sidle up and ever so slowly close their mouths around the natural or my imitation.

a bedraggled Mayfly emerger "Klinkhamer" style.

I tested 3 new adult mayfly patterns. one was a Klinkhamer style, the other 2 extended body things. I constantly changed between the 3 and the "Klinky" version was the clear winner. I was amazed how the frequency of takes shot up when this pattern was on the water. The extended body versions drew interest but not as much and a lot of the takes didn't convert to hook ups because the fish were grabbing the extended body so the hook didn't find purchase.

A little wildy that sucked in the May emerger. 

A lot of the fish were holding in open water but some were tucked into the narrowest, fastest channels in shallow water, hemmed in by ranunculus.

What a day on the water! Text book stuff. One of the best days on the water I can remember in 30 years of hurling flies about. Thanks again Paul and friends, you guys have done an amazing job of rehabilitating this little piece of the Stour.

A weekend on the chalk streams of Dorset

My mate Jacques and I cracked an invite from John Grindle to fish the Dorchester Fishing Club water last weekend. It's a lengthy drive from my house in the South East so John suggested we fish for 2 days, the second one on John Aplin's incredible mile of the Frome.

Tight casts in the Piddle to magnificent orange-finned brownies

We fished the Piddle on the 1st day because the Frome was still pretty high and a little dirty. The Large Dark Olives were coming off in enough numbers to have the little wild browns looking up and we we managed to get a few in the morning. The afternoon was warm, sunny and still and we worked our butts off to little avail.

Pretty over grown piece of the Piddle, the channel is in there I promise!

So we got off the Piddle a little early, met John Aplin and went to have a walk along his stretch of the Frome... a sneak preview of the water we'd be fishing in the morning. This is classic chalkstream but somehow unique in it's character. A truly beautiful bit of river, full of wild browns and grayling of Jurassic proportion (sorry no pics).

The bottom of John Aplin's piece of the Frome

It's not all manicured bank stuff, a good portion has bank side foliage along it's length and the amount of ranunculus and other aquatic weed is incredible. All that habitat produces huge amounts of fish food. The shrimp, BWO and LDO populations are huge and on day 2 we picked off enough brownies on imitations of emergers and adults to make us think we were fairly competent. No huge browns, but I'm sure they're there.

I ate pork pies and drank chardonnay while Jacques irritated the brownies

At about 3pm Jacques and I split up, we'd been spotting for each other to that point. I moved upstream, he down. I got a few more browns, some of them proving very challenging even on 7X and what I thought were good drifts produced by the Zenith 10' 3wt. And then I saw the behemoth. The largest grayling I'd ever seen. 4lbs? very possibly. I spent about a half hour stalking this thing and there was no way of getting a decent drift to it. Then its mates arrived: 2 more monster grayling. So, there I was staring at 3 massive grayling and no way of getting a drift to them. what did I do? What would you do? I kept staring. Until 6 that evening. Yes, I spent the afternoon just watching these things moving around in a 20metre area but never providing me a drift. I walked away a few times to recompose myself and get a finger hold on my sanity again... and then I went back, sidled up behind one of the 2 trees I had come to know very well through the afternoon, and stared.

The story ends well. While I was mid crisis Jacques was downstream landing 50cms of grayling. yes 50cms. He was a good 600 yards downstream from me. He tells me he screamed his lungs out trying to get me to him to take a picture of this thing: He had left his iphone in the car (who wants to take calls on the river) and the compact camera's batter was flat so he never packed it. Jacques' a pretty solid guy so I've no doubt he got a fish of 50cms and John Aplin estimated it at 4lbs. I think he knows the bigger fish on that beat fairly well and he told us the Frome and Dove grayling are of a sub species that is much heavier for their length than other strains.

Amazing water, available on day ticket and an amazing fish. Thanks to both Johns for their great company too!

my biggest grayling?

a few weeks ago Garth, Jacques and I spent a few days on the upper Wye in Wales. We got some good grayling and browns in spite of the very low river. The low clear conditions made for careful approaches and thin tippets... nothing wrong with that!

One evening, around 8pm, as the pub was calling, Garth and I spotted a steady riser: the fish was about 10 yards away, downstream, in about 6 inches of water over gravel. It was my turn... after about 20 or 30 drifts the fish ate my #16 CDC emerger. I think it was my biggest grayling, pushing 2lbs. now note that the fish might look smaller in the picture because I am 6'10" with big hands so all fish look small in my hands, really :-)

the fish jumped as Garth took the pic...