[Sandy Nelson]

Well Yesterday was a completely different day to Friday, typical Don fashion

The rain on friday night meant the water was carrying a touch of colour on saturday afternoon, so i started where i left off and tried the nymphs again, picked up a couple of wee ones but nothing like friday.  As I was working through some of the riffles i spotted a small pod of rising fish which were taking the small upwings as they were being pushed into crease.

So i very happily changed back to a small dry (size 16 plume tip) to match what i though were BWO's





Good move, A nice 12"r which was bigger than i expected and a very pretty fish. The pod kept feeding so i picked off a couple more including another 12"r



During the course of the afternoon i worked my steadily upstream, watching, instead of casting this time and spotted several good fish picking off the wee olives.
I missed one, hooked 3 and dropped all of them, so back on Form  there were plenty good fish sipping the duns if you took a lot of time to watch the likely areas and they were Good fish One of them i thought was a salmon showing at first, but not when he rose confidently for the wee dry, just a bugger that i couldn't hold on to him.

Eventually i managed to get close enough to one of the flies to rescue it from the water and to my surprise it wasn't a BWO but a small Large Dark olive, these were size 16 not the size 12's that we get in April and May



Swapping from Reaction strikes on Nymphs, to Dryfly and remembering to pause is tough But it was great to be picking the fish off the top again, even if i only managed to get the smaller ones to the net.

Sandy

[Iain Cameron]

been out a couple of times on the lower Don; it's settled and low and clear. Certainly much less weed compared with previous years, which is presumably a result of the heavy winter water.


Fish are here &  there, but not showing in great numbers. Lovely little pocket glide in midst of fast water revealed a few dimples one evening when walking the dog; was back there early next morning to pick up 3 cracking trout averaging 1.5lb in quick succession.  Got some pics somewhere (actually remembered to replace the SD Card into the camera, something that I had failed to do the day before... doh!)

Here's a 1 & 3/4lber that I caught one morning, then again one evening a week later



Evening sessions have been slow, mostly. There's a little flurry of 10 mins of trout just as the sedges come on, and just as the light drops. A little CDC emerger pattern has been working. Its wing got chewed off by a wee trout last night. I didn't have torch. Light was fading, eyesight already faded. Spent a comedy tragic 10 mins trying to thread on a new flee and another painful period securing the knot. Fish popping away all the while. Fly *finally* on. Fish had gone off. Doh!!


september; only a few weeks of trouting left!

[Iain Cameron]

and that exact same trout - distinctive cheek pattern -  one week and 12 hours later, from the exact same lie and on the same fly

[Liam Stephen]

What have you called him Iain!?   

 
Liam

[Iain Cameron]

i'll call him Don, Mr Don Brown!

[Sandy Nelson]

Well............. its been a funny old month so far

The weather has been doing strange things involving a rather unusual yellow orb in the sky. My last couple of trips have involved nothing but tiddlers and i have really struggled to find any good sized fish rising.
There has been hatches of LDO's and BWO's but not in any numbers and the warm weather seemed to have the fish sulking.

Today i was in the garden when the clouds appeared, so i had to nip down late afternoon just to see if the temp drop and overcast conditions would bring things to life What a difference the change in weather makes.

About 5pm the BWO's started to trickle off and at last i spotted a good fish. Managed to spook him by getting into position, but i know where he lives for tomorrow
Next one upstream, i missed.... I started thinking here we go again, confidence sliding some more after the last few decent fish being dropped

The first one i managed to get in wasn't a monster, but was a portly wee fellow with great colours and very pretty.



As i looked upstream amongst the weed and rocks i could see quite a few decent fish nailing the BWO's as they began to hatch in earnest at about 6. On with the a size 14 Plume tip as i couldn't see the 16 in the low light.
The next one that rose, started to re-float the old confidence.



as did the next  one and the one after that



every fish i spotted rose confidently for the Plume tip right up till about 7.15 when the last one , another portly wee fellow seemed to bring things to a close.



Lots of fat, golden fish today with a couple well up near the 3lb mark. I came home buzzing like a Kid eating sherbet  I have a couple of fish marked for tomorrow night as the forecast is for more of the same.
Bring on the BWO's and hopefully i can reach the Lump from the bank without disturbing the water

Sandy

[Mike Barrio]

Great stuff Sandy ..... fingers crossed for a good September Spurt

[Sandy Nelson]

Fantastic Hatch again tonight  but about an hour later than last night. I think the brighter day kept the fish low, but as soon as the sun disappeared the fish started to hoover up the BWO's

No decent Fish shots as it was getting a bit too dark, but i did get a shot of one of the BWO's earlier on when the sun was out.
they are very pale and my dry has been a lighter olive than usual. Going to have to tie a few more after tonights fish being somewhat more angry than yesterdays ones.



Great fun, even if a lot of the fish are so close to the weed its a real challenge to get the fly to them, quite a few of the fish are actually in the weed and rising for flies that are trapped or being swept though tiny channels.

Sandy

[Liam Stephen]

Andrew's Scruffy Cinnamon is the closest I have but I reckon it will be just fine!




A few nymphs to top up on them I'm off out.

 

[Sandy Nelson]

Well continuing on the theme she was a different beast again last night.

Weather much the same apart from the wind, water looking pretty much the same, even roughly the same hatch.....or so it seemed Yet despite my best efforts i blanked. It gets you thinking...why..............

4 days fishing in the last 7, 1 day of tiddlers, not even seeing a decent one, 1 day of world class dryfly action that could make a season, 1 day of wondering which one to catch next and then a blank

Well even after 30 years of experiencing the Dons many moods, it still baffles me from time to time. I did start to wonder if the fish had changed from the BWO's to the many sedges that were about, it didn't look like it, but something was definitely different. Maybe they were taking the pupa but it certainly looked like they were still picking off the BWO's, yet the killing fly from the previous 3 days wasn't touched.
I guess thats what keeps us going back for more.


Sandy

[Mike Barrio]

That's my experience of the river too Sandy ...... sometimes she just doesn't want to play

[Sandy Nelson]

You know... Come to think of it...... I did have a different hat on for a change yesterday 

Mystery solved 

[Liam Stephen]

I had a good few hours on the Don yesterday. When I arrived at 1ish there was a great hatch of B.W.Os under way and the fish were rising to them. Although they were rising they were very picky and I couldn't figure out what stage of the hatch they were keyed in on. I tired my usual emerger pattern -nope, my usual dun pattern - nope, my usual spinner pattern - nope, I even put a couple of tiny very light weight nymphs across them....... Eventually a Waterhen Bloa did the trick and I started to get in amoungst them.

Fish came fairly steady for about 30mins then the Bloa stopped producing (this may have been physiological or poor presention)  )

Strange, I sat and watch and spotted 2 what looked like good fish rolling over flies steady. These one were definitely taking the duns! On went the plume tip and I hooked one straight away.   A strange fight followed then this fella came to the net.

A nice cock grilse of around 2.5lb, he was very long and lean.







Funny how we were talking about salmon on dries the day before Sandy.... Fate? 

I fished on and caught lots o nice fish,  all the while thinking of the main event. The rise at dusk. It happened and the water was littered. I didn't have any huge fish but plenty at 2lb and this one at 18" so I guess around 3lb.  This fish was actually spotted from a vantage point above sitting in front of a rock I've seen fish at before. It took me about an hour to get a clean drift where I could actually see the fish take my fly to hook it.



I good but challenging day and I'm looking forward to getting out again.

 

[Mike Barrio]

Great stuff Liam

[Sandy Nelson]

An interesting week to round off my very interesting season.

We've had wind, rain, bright sun, warmth, coolness and calmness, but none of this has deterred the BWO's from hatching in large numbers, some times more than others, but the fish have been feeding pretty steadily on the continuous stream of flies coming down. Still its all feeling very autumnal.



It took me a wee while to figure things out on Monday night, as there were a lot of very gentle rises which seemed to me , to be be better fish than they appeared, well trying my usual flies did not seem to elicit the desired response, so i got to wondering if the fish were feeding on Spinners rather than the many duns floating down.

Turned out to be a good plan, a wee size 16 orange spinner was just the ticket and i got  a couple for more trouble.
With this knowledge up my sleeve, wednesday was to be one of the best days of the 2016 season. Lots of beautiful fish in the 10-14" category with a handful of 16+ hoovering up spinners. Looking fantastic in the breeding colours



Not all the steady risers were locals either



It turned into a day of spotting fish from the banks and then getting into position and stalking them, brilliant fun and some rather good fish about too. The Young Gun was having a great time bending his glass stick again, lovely fish too about 16"
 

from Alexander Nelson on Vimeo.

We met up with Mr Cameron later in the day and he was doing much the same and had spotted a rather special fish picking off the flies quite close in. The kind gent that he is ,  let me have a crack at it. This one ignored the spinner, but was picking things of the top with regularity, so after a wee thought i went for a size 16 APT. First cast and he sidled over and sipped the fly quite nonchalantly. the water erupted and the fight ensued.
2nd best of the season and a good 21-22"long, well chuffed  , the photographer needs some lessons in how to use my camera though 


A great way to bring the season to a close, but still another day off beckoned 

Well today has been bloody windy and rather wet, but the fish continued from yesterday and despite the river getting more coloured as the day went on, the spinner continued to fool the fish and my very last fish of the season from the Don was definitely one of the prettiest.


A lot of sea trout in pods feeding hard on the duns and spinners, but we had a lot of fun stalking more fish, Young Mr Stephen was extolling the thought of getting one last good fish for himself on the way back to the car when we spotted it, but thats another post as i have a video to share which is a rather fun.

Oh, and the weirdest catch of the week, was the oddest catch of the season.



I thought i'd hooked a leaf, but this was not what i expected to find on the hook Twas dead though.

Sandy