I had quite a pleasant surprise yesterday on speaking with Mr Pointon. I had been under the impression that fishing on the Haddon Estate Wye for Grayling finished on the 1st of January when in fact the last day is the 6th so I managed to sneak in an extra morning's fishing. I checked the weather and all looked quite well for this time of year. I was up bright and early only to find that it had been snowing so wondered whether my extra trip would go ahead after all. Nonetheless I packed up the car filled one jeans pocket with pork pies the other with Quality Street, and made my way up the Buxton Road. All was not well as I drove over the tops, the road was covered in snow and I was sliding everywhere. I'd texted Jan the keeper early in the morning to see if it had snowed over Bakewell way and he'd replied that it hadn't, so I plodded on hoping that the weather hadn't changed.
As I got closer to Bakewell the weather improved vastly and as I parked up near to Caudwell's Mill I noticed that the air temperature was a good couple of degrees warmer than at home in Leek too. I got tackled up and made sure I'd got a few extra layers of clothes on. I hadn't fished since the beginning of December probably the longest I've gone without fishing in the last three years so I was hoping that a dip in confidence wouldn't affect things too much.
The going was tough. I visited all my dead cert spots and for a good couple of hours I didn't have a bite. What made it worse was that on bumping into Jan on the river bank he assured me that the river was fishing it's head off just a couple of days ago.....
I eventually managed a few small grayling but thought it might be time to head back up towards town, near to the pumping station to try some faster, shallower waters. I was soon into one or two fish, the best of which being the one in the pic above that came to a tiny pink shrimp on my top dropper...a beauty...
Farewell wonderful Wye....I look forward to fishing for the troots with the dry later on in the spring...
Slainte
David
Dave, that is a nice fish and a good end to the winter on the Wye. I had another crafty session at Ellastone this afternoon and will post up an almost identical pose later.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Dave.
Woody
ReplyDeleteNice session to end the Wye for u,bring on the summer crack on the Wye.. Can't wait
Uc
Pointoooonnnn.....where've you been?? Islay in a few months!
ReplyDeleteWoody