Thoughts on why this lovely trout river needs more genuine fly-fishers
Fly fishing for trout in March can be either thrilling sport or very hard work. A lot depends on the weather and its effect of the stimulation of fly hatches.
Nevertheless, I was a little late in getting down to the water this weekend, thanks to work commitments. I was however greeted with a few hatches of the Large dark Olive (LDO). This is a grand fly of the springtime that the trout usually relish with glee around lunchtime.
For whatever reason though risers were infrequent and for the first hour of me trundling around the banks all I had managed to do was rise and fail to secure one quick fish on a dry, blue dun imitation.
I persisted and finally landed two beautiful browns from fast - paced runs that had wonderful gold and red-spotted markings. Both were swiftly returned to grow bigger. Both fish fell to a dry imitation of the LDO presented on ultra-light gear and my 5' 5" home-made dry fly rod with DT no. 2 line.
I even managed to do a spot of arty photography around the waterfalls too, using a mini tripod and slow shutter release.
The unusually warm weather made the afternoon a glorious event of natural solitude.
FLY ONLY?
As a footnote: It beats me why anyone would ever wish to angle for such wonderful fish with anything except small 'barbless' flies when tackling this marvellous species, the brown trout.
Bait fishing will catch fish yes, but surely this is NOT what it's all about on such rivers. Course fishing has its place but surely NOT when the genuinely 'Sporting angler' is dealing with lovely fly rivers like the Lancashire Yarrow.
Wild brown trout truly deserve all the respect they are due by conservation - minded angling clubs etc and the individuals therein!
Save the maggots, worms and sweetcorn for the local canal where they belong!
Hi pat i go fly fishing in duxbury woods , were are the best places to fish on the river yarrow , i have heard pincock st is good. phil
ReplyDeletePhillip, sorry I have ONLY just seen this post. I am also sorry but I only know the SFF stretch on this river so cannot really help mate.
Delete