A beautiful day today, lovely and warm with a nice wee breeze
So i spent the day on a favourite beat in great company.
Over the duration of the day we saw quite a few rising fish, but what they were feeding on was not always very obvious.
At first i thought it was the large dark olives that were trickling off late morning
So did this guy, but then the others didn't seem to think so...........
Next up there were Grannoms skittering about and it looked like there was about to be a huge Grannom hatch, there was a good hatch but not the blizzard the conditions suggested might happen, At the start of the hatch a small dhe fooled a couple
Some real yellow Sally stoneflies were on the wing, but the trout didn't bat an eyelid at those
The one decent size fish i sat on for several hours was feeding sporadically against the far bank, i tried all sorts of flies, DHE's , plume tips, CDC spiders and all were ignored in a variety of sizes. I even went down to a size 18 black smut and he looked at it but didn't convict to eating it......what to do
He went quiet for a wee while so i wandered off. When i came back he was still rising every now and then so i harked back to a paragraph i read in a Rene Harrop book about how sometimes a big terrestrial can fool a feeding fish. So a rake around my bag and i found a size 12 Hawthorn. There were none to be seen anywhere, but what the hell......... First cast.....
Best of the season so far 21" and an on the line 4lb in the net
Once he went back he decided to sit in front of me for several minutes, so i couldn't resist invading his recovery time..
Bonny fish, well pleased after a weeks worth of trying in all sorts of conditions
Late in the afternoon there was a sporadic hatch of Olive uprights and this time i managed to catch one to confirm it was them
The fish kept rising, but very hit or miss and it was tough, but i was almost tempted to stay and see what the evening brought, might keep that for tomorrow
Sandy