I still need to write up my recent solo to Wester Ross and also a brief bit of fish bothering whilst on a family holiday to Lewis but for now I’m just making a few notes on what might be my last river trout outing this season. We’d just got back from aforementioned holiday and trying to mentally prepare ourselves for returning to work after nearly 2 weeks off. I selfishly decided I needed to hit the river for a session and besides I had a brand new Loop neck lanyard thingy to try out.
I parked up and headed down to the river (Wharfe). I’d reached bingo point by the time I realised I’d left my Polaroids in the motor so going back wasn’t an option. It was still low, had a touch of colour and the sun was relentlessly reflecting back off the surface over much of the river. If only I had some way of donning apparatus over my eyes that would cut out this glare. I’d put my rod up in the car park but held off tackling up any further until I’d sussed out what was going down. Nothing appeared to be rising so I ran my French leader through the rings and stuck on a couple of small bead head flies.
The water just seemed too low and lifeless, and a favourite deeper section had a fallen tree sunk into it which buggered up the current. As I fished my way through my 4 hour session I grew increasingly irritated at not catching, not getting any offers, not being able to see quite what my indicator braid was doing half the time and generally annoyed at myself for being a gash angler. Even the joy of having a new fishing toy (neck lanyard) to play with wasn’t cheering me up. Very useful though, saves fertling around in pockets for leader etc!
By the time I’d fished my way back up to Belt Wood which is meant to be a ‘banker’ stretch I felt like throwing my rod, or indeed myself into the river such was my mental fug. About then my leader almost imperceptibly paused and I lifted into a mighty fish finger sized Grayling. Thank fuck I’ve not blanked! 5 minutes later my leader stopped and I connected with a nice brownie and managed to get it into the net. Yeah yeah it’s just nice to be out and all that claptrap but man I needed that fish, doesn’t take much to put my fishing confidence into the pits of despair.
Mission accomplished I fished on for another 10 minutes or so then decided I needed to get my self back home pronto. Nice way to end the season and already looking forward to Grayling sessions over Autumn/Winter!