A Sign of the Times...at Dovedale

Well, I could resist no longer...I've been fishing up at Milldale for the last couple of outings and I thought it was time I fished the first section at Dovedale...I fancied a nice, slow chill out session without having to walk too far, and so, at about 6.15pm I arrived at the car park at Dovedale.

There weren't as many cars as usual, the weather was bright but very breezy. I think this cold snap had put a few folk off. The first thing I noticed was the new sign that had been erected, please click on the pic to expand...it appears some new rules are in place.

Anyway, I was looking forward to the fishing. I had my last LTD emerger pattern in my box and selected it as my first fly. It was very breezy, luckily in the right direction and I made my first cast into the pool upstream of the footbridge....bump, fish on, a lovely pounder. I was chuffed to bits to have landed one so early. I knew this fly was going to do the biz again for me tonight.

I only had an hour or so, so I quickly fished up the fast stretches. I had a cast into the large pool half way up and connected with this lovely wee troot....again on the LTD. It gave me a right scrap.

Conditions were great, apart from the wind, and I was surprised at how many rises there were given the cold air. There were quite a few hatches though, brought on by the heavy downpours we'd had in the afternoon perhaps.

There wasn't a great deal happening in the nursery pool and I decided to walk straight past it given the time restraints, it's far too easy to see a fish there and waste much of your time trying to fool it in the slow water when you could be catching upstream.

I headed up past the trees and fished under the far bank. I had a take immediately and the fish was off like a rocket and kept making spectacular leaps into the air, until, eventually, I lost him. I tried a few feet upstream and quite soon I had a take and I landed this lovely brownie. I tried a couple of other flys but they weren't interested, only the LTD would do...it'd definitely doing the biz at the moment.

What a great night's fishing, three lovely brownies in an hour and a half. Another confidence booming session.

Cheers

David