There's Gould In Them There Hills.....

Ian Gould's first visit to the beautiful Wye in Bakewell and the tourist board marks the occasion with a specially commissioned balloon.




Bank holiday Monday the 30th August had been a long time coming. I'd booked onto Derbyshire's unbeatable river Wye along with Ian Gould of Errwood Fly Fishing Club. Ian enjoys reservoir fly fishing, and the occasional river fishing and really fancied landing a large Wye Grayling.

From the early hours of Saturday morning right up until lunch time, we'd had heavy downpours in Leek and I wondered what the weather would be like in the hills above us. Those very hills that supplied our destination with its waters. One or two anxious texts between Ian and I resulted in me piling the kids into the van to speed off towards Bakewell to check out the conditions. I needn't have bothered, the river looked perfect, and as long as we didn't have too much more rain, all would be fine as long as the wind dropped.

And so, at 10am Ian was collected from Buxton and we made our way towards Bakewell, very much looking forward to an incredibly large breakfast to see us through the day. I'd forgotten the fact that it was bank holiday and basically, every parking space in Bakewell was spoken for so we'd collect our tickets and start fishing early instead.

Ian had set himself a target early on. As long as he went home having caught 1 of each of the native, Grayling, Brown and Rainbow Trout, he would be a very happy man indeed, and he was soon off to a perfect start with this wee Rainbow.

What started as a chilly start, soon turned much warmer and I was glad that I hadn't bothered with my waders or jacket. There was loads of fly life and plenty of rises to be seen but during the day, it was smaller fish that we seemed to be attracting to our tiny flies. Griffiths Gnat and Grey Dusters seemed to do the job with the LTD putting in a rare, and certainly the first for me...wait for it...blank! Maybe it's time for a new LTD Pointon....the fish have seen it too many times! :-)

During the evening we made our way towards the town and enjoyed quite a few small Grayling to our tiny flies. The town centre had been incredibly busy during the day and unfortunately, the lunkers were not particularly hungry, in fact, they were that full they'd gone off to bed early. Despite this though, Ian managed a lovely, touching 3lb Brownie which was a classic end to the evening.

Ian and I had a great day, and Ian's aim of 1 of each of the native Grayling, Rainbow and Brown Trout was achieved. Come on Ian...get on the Wye on the 12th September!

Thanks to Richard W for spending time with us explaining the spinner fall and indeed providing us with a couple of his own patterns for the evening rise.

We finished up chatting with Dave and Jan besides the Wye in the town centre and I thought it was a good time to fetch out this week's mystery dram from the van......a lovely single cask, single grain whisky, 40 year old Invergordon, which was about the same colour as the sunset reflected on the river in the pic above...good health!

Slainte

David