Today I awoke at 5:50 am and could not get back off to sleep despite having a late night so decided to cut my losses after an hour wasted on social media and get my ass to the Wharfe. I was hoping to have a better session than last weekend where I only caught some tiddler grayling and an out of season brownie, discovered my neoprene’s were leaking and then snapped my rod…or rather had it snapped for me, but that’s another story. Thankfully after paying my £60 fee to Vision I got the replacement section back very promptly, good service. Not sure if I’ll get the waders repaired, they’ve already had one visit to Diver Dave 😀
I was at the river for just after 9am and fishing by 09:30 with a dry fly set up as there were some rises on the water. This is very good for me who struggles to wet a line before midday half the time.
I successfully managed to put all the rising fish down without catching any so returned to the bank and put on my nymph reel instead, on the repaired Nymphmaniac.
I then waded back out and fished a nice run with a French nymph setup but without success. The river was much lower than it would normally be at this time of year, we’ve had no rain for ages!
I sacked this beat off and headed up stream through the farmyard and dropped back down onto the run where I’d caught my junior grayling last weekend. Although the river is low (and really clear!) this run was still at a nice depth and had a decent flow pushing through it. After a while I caught a small grayling and then one a bit bigger.
I decided to get a quick shot and was able to deploy my new purchase, a rod holder that clips on your wading belt. Oh where have you been all my fishing life?! What a brilliant little gadget! You can securely clip your rod in there whilst fannying around with the net etc. Not long after I got into a better fish which turned out to be a brownie of which I got a super quick pic of before sending him back on his way.
No more fish from this pool so I got out and stomped around to try warm my feet and legs up as today I was in my summer breathable waders. It was fairly mild at 10 or 11 degrees today but I don’t half feel the cold now I’m a grey haired old bastard. A swift couple of flask brews and a stolen Fredo from my son’s stash then I head up to the stretch below the viaduct, passing over the disgusting sewage outlet. Here I waded out and first cast..barely even a cast if I’m honest, but at least I was tracking it down…I got a solid take which resulted in a better grayling. Quick photo then back he went.
After another half an hour I decided to head back and catch up with Stu who had also turned up to have a bash at the grayling. Below you can see his nymphing triangle of awesomeness as one of the angling writers call it.
A much better session than last weekend, not least because my rod came home intact but also because I felt like I was a bit more on top of my nymphing game, fishing my flies at the right depth and keeping the tension and ‘leading’ them correctly. I kept the same 2 nymphs on all day but it was the Perdigon on point that caught them all!