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!

Mayfly spinners are go!

Prepping for the Mayfly (Danica) hatches to come...

Inspired by Oliver Edwards and others I've added this spinner pattern to my family of Danica imitations. 

The recipe:

Hook: #10 light wire scud/emerger (yes, this is a big fly!)

Tail: Pheasant tail fibres 

Body: 2mm white foam worked into shape using a tube fly needle mounted in my vice.

Hackle: Cock dyed Iron Blue

Wings: White Tiemco Aerowing with mottling created with a dark brown marking pen 

The spinners on my home water, the Darent in South East England, are normally mainly black and white, with little of the tan and green left that we see in the dun: So I've used an Iron Blue Dun from Christina at Chevron Hackles for the hackle. Better than black. 

I've used an extended body because long shanked hooks in large sizes offer a long lever for angler and fish to become detached. A short shank hook will hold much better.

I like the realistic effect achieved by pheasant fibres but they're so brittle! Anyone got a better material for this? Please let me know.

Only a month to go to the mother of all hatches!

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.