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
