Early September Angling on the Rivers of Staffordshire and Derbyshire

What a mixed bag of fishing the last week or so have been. I've been out and about nearly every evening and yesterday, for a full day on the Derbyshire Wye.

Earlier last week I had a walk down to the upper Churnet upstream of Leek, only a field or two away from where I live. Whilst I did see quite a few fish, rises were few and far between. Cattle are grazing nearer to the river than I've seen then before and there are quite a few sections where I usually do quite well, that the cattle now use to wade in and drink so I wonder whether this has moved the fish about a bit. I still managed to catch a few on the dry though and can't help noticing that they seem to be growing rather quickly which is great news for the seasons to come. In the next month or so,  after the end of the trout season, I'll enjoy walking the dog down there and keeping my eye out for the odd, much larger silver fish that may make it there...and don't tell me there's no chance as that's what folk said when I asked if it were possible for these large silver fish to make it to the upper Dove, or if sea trout could be running in the Dove, which they of course are...I know, I've caught one.

Anglers of Derbyshire and Staffordshire will recognise the fisherman in the pic above, and he and I visited Ellastone and Eaton Dovedale last week too. Many anglers have found it tough on the Dove this last few weeks, largely due to lack of water. We tried Ellastone together and other than dropping quite a large Grayling in the fast water at the top of the DRAC stretch, we had no luck at all.

On a couple of occasions, I headed down to Eaton Dovedale and had more success on the nymph for the Grayling than on the dry and the trout do seem to be hiding away

I bumped into Brian on Saturday night, he'd had quite a bit of success on tiny dry flies during the daytime but he noted that rises began to disappear during the late afternoon period. Light conditions do seem to be changing and Autumn is definitely on it's way and fishing, especially late on in the day just seems to have gone a bit weird.


















Yesterday I had the last minute opportunity to meet up with Glen and JT at the Peacock Hotel in Rowsley in preparation for a full day's fishing on the Derbyshire Wye.

John took me to a couple of places I hadn't visited before, where, because of the tricky swims and bank vegetation, we took it in turns to cover the grayling and brown and rainbow trout that were abundant there. We had some great sport on the LTD sedge and other sedgy flies. Among others, I had a cracking grayling of about 1lb 1/2 and JT had a huge brownie. Cheers for the help JT..

Again, late on in the afternoon rises were few and far between, but wherever we saw them, we'd creep up and carefully present our tiny dries to them, hoping to induce a splash or two.

Late on in the day, Glen had great fun on a run where fish were switched on to a spinner fall and he managed about half a dozen fish in 10 minutes or so.....

Next Sunday, there's quite a few of us on the Wye and a couple of weeks after that, 7 of us head up to the Isle of Islay for trout, salmon and sea fishing.

Slainte

David

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

The Wonderful Wye (Glen Pointon appears courtesy of Forrero Rocher and Cucumber Sandwiches With The Corners Cut Off)

Just a short post to say thanks to The Peacock Hotel for another absolutely wicked day on the wonderful river Wye. I say short because our host for the day, none other than Glen Pointon seems to have stolen my thunder on his blog as usual. So i've poached some of his pics from his photobucket site to get my own back.

It's good to see that he has settled in at The Peacock. When I arrived at 11.30am on Sunday Morning I thought that I had made it before the others because it was so quiet, in fact, I walked straight past Pointon, I couldn't see him, so well did he blend in to his new surroundings.

When I eventually spotted him, after being called over by Commo, I thought I was hallucinating. Sat there, quietly tying his flies for the day to come, sipping Twinnings English Breakfast tea from fine bone china, his little finger pointing towards the ceiling as he occasionally raised the cup, was none other than Pointon, Lord Rocher himself.

"Hi Woody", he says, "come and join us".

I think that those are the most words I've ever heard Glen say without him swearing. Look back at all the posts I have written on this blog over the last year or so that involve Glen. In almost every case, in the first paragraph there will be a mention of an unfeasibly large breakfast, not today....just the tea and a nice, wafer thin biscuit would suffice.

At just after 12 noon, Johnny arrived, and I'm sure he to was in a state of utter shock to see the "Stoke on Trent One" so at home in his new habitat.

We decided to make a move and it was down to Caudwell's Mill to go look for a few rising Grayling. Commo had a nice wee wild Rainbow Trout early on and Johnny managed a Grayling.

We walked upstream a little and found a few fish rising under a tree on the far bank and Commo and I were given the task of casting at them, under the watchful eyes of Johnny and Pointon, the latter, now away from the posh surroundings, slipping in to his Liverpudlian accent, and hurling abuse at us for casting too short, casting too far, casting into trees, and generally cocking it up...but a nice wee Grayling was managed eventually.

We had a drive up to town and Glen showed us around the river. We knew there wasn't really any point in fishing too hard for the 2 or 3 hours to come as there was very little happening. The fish were not moving, there were no hatches, and energy would need to be conserved for the inevitable burst of activity in the evening to come. So for a couple of very well spent hours, we took our time examining the pools and riffles for a later date.

At about 4pm, we were slowly walking along the riverside path in Scots Garden, and Glen went all weird again. He stopped and turned to us, dismantled 9ft 4wt Streamflex in one arm, Port Vale FC emblazoned on the other, and suggested that we might "return to the Peacock for arrrrftarnun tea".

Johnny, Commo and me just looked at one another. There was nothing to be said really so we motored back to where we started and made our way into the lounge where refreshments would be served, Pointon having arranged for them previously.

Five minutes later, in the lounge, sitting dangerously comfortably in our chairs, were were served with more English Breakfast Tea, but this time, it was accompanied with homemade crumpets and lashings of strawberry jam.........I know.

Later on we'd head to the town centre and witness huge fish rising everywhere. Johnny had 2 or 3 cracking wild Rainbows and I a personal best (wild) Rainbow of just under 4lb and a Grayling of just under 2. Both to Glen's LTD sedge.

A cracking day's fishing in the great company of Commo, Johnny C, and Glen. Thanks to the Peacock and the river keeping team...

Woody