[Noel Kelly]

That's a great trout Liam well done! 👍😀

[Liam Stephen]

Thanks guys! 

Here is the fly that continues to produce for me:




I carry a few more different bead colours but I'm not giving away all my secrets!

 

[Sandy Nelson]

One for girth.

To put some real scale on that, those measuring wraps are set at 3" apart, so that really is some brute of a fish

Sandy

[Liam Stephen]

I must admit I thought my luck had changed after that belter. However normal service resumed today as I
dropped the two better fish I hooked! 

One for the second time, so hopefully next time it will be third time lucky! I'd like to get a proper look at him, I reckon 3lb from what I've seen. The other was hooked in a bit of water I've never fished before.......  He was a fair old lump and in heavy water with a light rod I was never really in control. Both found the weed and were able to transfer my nymph from their mouth into the thick green stuff.

New rod tomorrow, my luck has to change again.

 

[Liam Stephen]

Today I received my 580 around lunch time and headed for a beat I have only fished once before. I chose to fish the Duo and focused on the faster water.  From the off I picked up fish from all the seams as pockets I pitched the flies into. It was going to be a great day!

It was awesome sport and it gave me a good chance to really get a feel for the 580 and GT90 combo (Sandy fantastic job as always and Mike the line is magic).

I lost count of the fish I caught but the majority went from the usual 8-12", with a few pushing 15-16".



I was really enjoying exploring the new beat. I had kind of got into a rhythm of cast, track and move when my dry landed and disappeared...... I thought I had hit a rock or a patch of weed so gave it a yank.

The line sliced through the water and whatever was on the end was pissed off! The fish charged about deep and I had a bit of a job getting his head up. Then I saw him and my heart started racing. The rod was doubled over in the heavy flow and I was stuck with my stupid little net again.  I messed up netting him twice and was shitting my pants as I could see the fish was very lightly hooked.

It seemed my luck was back and what better way to christen the 580!








Guys buy an Orange rod they are big fish magnets! 

 

[Mike Barrio]

Great stuff Liam ....... cracking fish!

My day felt a bit more like jungle warfare as we battled our way along the banks ....... I'm getting old
But a most enjoyable one in great company ..... and the DHE helped me find some spirited wee opponents

[James Craig]

Liam,

Absolute belter of a fishing report.

"I messed up netting him twice and was shitting my pants as I could see the fish was very lightly hooked."

...had me laughing out loud at my desk. This line alone captures the spirit of why I go fishing....

[Sandy Nelson]

This time those wraps are 4" apart Thumping fish well done young man. You are going to need a bigger net though

I managed to find a couple of decent rising fish yesterday, (couldn't get into the nymphing thing, but i will keep trying)
The jungle warfare made things interesting, including (literally with the murky water) a leap of faith to net my best fish

The bigger one i spooked first time, left him for half an hour and went back and hooked him, true to form i managed to drop him, provenance for not being out much of late Huge fun with an acrobatic display prior to throwing the hook.

The smaller one did the same but i managed to get him to the net



Bright orange rods rule and emerging sedges are very handy things to have

Sandy

[Mike Barrio]

Yes, the 'bigger one' was a nice fish Sandy, it certainly took off in style

"The jungle warfare made things interesting, including (literally with the murky water) a leap of faith to net my best fish"

Love it, that leap of faith could so easily have gone very wrong if it had turned out to be shoulder deep! ..... and something that I learnt yesterday is that it might be a good idea to keep my fags in a top pocket in future

[Mike Barrio]

Couple of hours on the river with the GT90 #3 today ...... leaves everywhere, it's like Autumn already



Headed back down this evening, but it just rained and rained ..... I should have quit while I was ahead    

I got a good soaking and stayed on till dark. No sign of any life on the water, or fish for that matter, just a brief spell of sedges in the last light.

[James Craig]

I was out too last night on the upper reaches. The water was up and it didn't stop raining, but the temperature also hovered around 18 degrees for most of the evening so it was bearable. I was chasing salmon (unsuccessfully) but had lots of wee brownies. 

I'm  sure there were more fish about in the deeper pools, but I couldn't get down deep enough with the kit that I had... 

[Sandy Nelson]

Out this afternoon, not much rising, in fact very few and nothing over about 8" so i thought i'd give the  NZ style nymphing thing another go.

This time i managed to get it to work, picking some pockets with the tiny PT nymphs supplied by the very kind Mr S



Had quite a few but this was the best one, 19"and over 3lb, this time i got him to the net (despite the weed, rocks and current) I spent a solid 2 hours working the water and had lots of small stuff but this one was the icing on the Cake.

I guess PT nymphs can no longer be called my Bogey fly Cheers Dude



Sandy

[Liam Stephen]

Sandy 

This made me smile! 

Glad you gave it another try. Great fish and awesome pics.

PTN- the only nymph you need. 

Liam

[Mike Barrio]

Great stuff ........ Hmmm, maybe time to dig out a few spiders

Cheers
Mike

[Liam Stephen]

Go deeper Mike! 

I've just placed an order for a whack of Tungsten. I'll put a handful of PTNs in the post once I get them.

 

[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