Dovedale comes up with the goods....

....I'm fishing every day this week whilst the family are away and last night I visited Dovedale again, I love the place. 

Glen managed to sneak out before me in the afternoon and on his way back from his session, he decided to call me to advise me to "Geron it youth, it's buzzing man"....so I did....and he was right.

Before I arrived at the car park, I had decided that I would walk up to the stretch around Ilam Rock as I've fished the water up to the stepping stones (aka Pointon's Glen) quite a bit this season. I really enjoyed fishing the slower, deeper parts of the river on Sunday, it's quieter up there too.

The air temperature was much higher than it has been in the last couple of days and the river, although still high, was much clearer. I crossed the footbridge and just couldn't bring myself to walk past the fast stretch, so all plans went out of the window, as usual and I started to fish. I envy all the other fishermen who have the willpower to walk past this stretch to fish the other sections.

I fished my way up to the Nursery Pool taking fish along the way. I found that after catching two in the first fifteen minutes, my confidence was growing, and this really helped the fish come on. There is nothing worse than when you have those days when you are always in a tangle, uncomfortable with your gear, hot, mythered (irritated for those who conner tow crate), and swearing at everyone and everything....it stops you catching fish. So of late, I have learned to make sure that I'm as organised as possible before I leave the car park, and that I'm keeping unnecessary accessories to an absolute minimum, and I think it's starting to do the trick. 

There were good olive hatches coming off all evening. I stuck with dries all night and one in particular for the most part, which I thought was one from Glen's Living The Dream range. It was a small olive emerger and the only one I had in my box....so, as it was taking fish, I was desperate not to lose it as again, this would be a blow to my confidence.

I walked right up to where you can cross the river to avoid the ascending path and fished my way back to the Nursery Pool where I couldn't resist having a crack at the plentiful rises there. I'm finding that my presentation is improving, especially since I've started to use a braided leader to minimise drag, and experimented with different types and makes of tippet. I tempted a good few fish to the fly and dropped a couple. I changed to an Elk Hair and to an Adams but they just weren't interested, they were totally focused on the olives.

The light started to fade quite quickly and I thought I would like to drop down to see if there were any rises further downstream and had a last couple of casts into some fast water. Here I took my best fish of the night of just under a pound. 

A great night and hopefully my confidence will continue to grow...I'll find out later as I head up there again to see if they are "avin it".

David

ps don't be deceived by the seemingly small size of the fish in the pic above...I've got massive hands.