Managed to squeeze in an hour or so fishing the Wharfe last night. Half an hour getting my fishing gear etc together, 25 minute drive, 10 minutes tackling up, 15 minute walk to river, in reality I’d say about 1 hour 15 minutes of actual fishing. Followed by a reversal of all that. Seems a lot of effort! However it was definitely worth going. Firstly, the lovely sight of all this flowering wild garlic.
Secondly, on the first pool I had no action but started to understand one of the issues affecting my French Nymphing – I subconsciously draw the rod and line back towards me when lifting the rod and consequently end up fishing closer in than planned. There was a lot of brown foam on the river, not sure how much of this is natural and how much is from a sewage outflow further upstream.
I crossed the river to move back upstream to fish ‘Belt Wood’ which is a popular beat, expecting to see other anglers fishing the evening session but it was deserted. I waded in and worked my way up fishing the far bank, still using weighted nymphs and eventually saw the indicator jerk unnaturally so lifted into it. A good initial scrap followed but it didn’t take long to get the trout into my net (freshly hung on a new hammerhead retractor – useful bit of kit) and thereby giving me the third good reason for going fishing tonight!
After a few more chucks I managed a nasty tangle and with light fading and a bottle of red at home with my name on it I called it a night and tackled down. It was a nice sunset and I was enjoying the walk back watching the placid sheep and lambs go about their business.
However, after crossing the river I had a nightmare working my way through the field of cows which were in a very agitated mood, jumping up and down and charging at me. I’m not normally bothered by cows but this lot had me backed into a corner at one point!