I've spent the day Daydreaming about the summer.
twas bloody cold all day
:
So i ended up wandering the river of my mind.
June/July
Daytime i would err towards using the czech nymph style, through riffles and rapids, picking pockets and generally searching out the fish that are lying in small holes of well oxygenated water. Many surprises can be gained trying this.
For a more relaxing time i would wander till i found a nice glide with a steady rise, this goes on all day during the summer if you find the right spots, small buzzers and black midge dries will see you catch fish after fish, but they will mostly be small( not all, but most
)Tiny flies 20-26 make things fun.
Looking for fast water surrounded by trees will bring sport with terrestrials and large black spider type flies. Beetles and inchworms drop off the trees in the heat and if a wind is blowing, Dung flies and grasshoppers can bring a fish to the surface. This can be great fun but is very much search fishing.You have to work the flies on the faster water and keep moving, but its all great fun.Eddies and pools behind rocks will trap these bugs, so are well worth exploring if this is what you are trying
As the evening draws in the river will change, Yellow mays first then later on the Blue winged olives will hatch as evening falls, this will bring the better trout to the surface. I would look too the head of the glides for the Yellow mays, preferably below the faster water a bit like the march brown spots, the nymphs share a similar habitat and hatch off in similar places. On some rivers they are ignored but up here the trout love them
A tree lined stretch is often a good place to find the flies in clouds, later in the night the spinners will fall and the trout may or may not take them, i'm undecided.
The BWO's however are a different kettle of fish, the glides and rifles are the places, much as for the LDO's of april, again the nymphs share similar habits. Look for rising fish (obviously) but also cast around any feature, such as rocks, branches, eddies or creases in the current the trout will often hang here to wait for the flies. Working a small hares ear nymph can be very effective too especially in the riffle water. Again picking pockets can be pretty good too.The little boats will float for quite a while on the water so often the better fish will pick them off from a lie as they float past, watch for tiny rise forms.
A steady riser at this time is often taking BWO (Sherry) spinners, once they start to fall the trout will get quite preoccupied with them, anything orange you can get to sit in the surface film should work. Again the riffles and features are the places to look. Often 2-3 good fish will sit together near a prominent feature (like a couple of rocks) if you can get to them be careful you may only get one chance so choose carefully.
Incedently as far as rocks go remember too that often a bigger fish will sit in front of the rock in the pressure wave, picking of subsurface food as it swirls past.
These are often the fish you pick up on the Czech style nymph.
Czech nymphs is generally regarded as a winter pastime for Grayling but it can a really good way to pick up large trout during the day in the summer.
Once it is dark a large muddler or palmered fly skated across the top, right at the tail of a rapid or riffle will bring big torut up to slash at it.
Seatrout and salmon can be a bonus doing this too.A fairly large streamer type lure worked along the edge can bring out some big fish as well. Wooly buggers or zonkers can be great for this.Its brutal but can be great fun especially in a deeper stretch. Large features such as trees and undercut banks lend themselves to investigation by this method.
Does anyone try anything else?
next up August/September
Sandy
