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

Hard Day on The Severn Produces Pointon's PB

It had been 3 weeks since my last fishing outing, 3 weeks since one of my best fish producing sessions since I decided to take up fly fishing a couple of years ago. I was looking forward to getting out and Glen and I had arranged to meet up with John Tyzack and Roger Bryant for a return visit to the fantastic Upper Severn....and what a day of contrasts it would turn out to be.



I'd set my alarm for 6am with the responsibility of providing Mr Pointon with his alarm call. On the 5th call, I'd managed to awake him from his slumber and by 6.40am, he'd picked me up and the van was pointing towards Wales, well, sort of once Glen had negotiated a dubious detour around Stoke. After a huge breakfast (as ever) we arrived at the bridge pool on the river where we'd fared so well on our previous visit, the colour of the water being the first obvious difference, it was green.

There were no fish to be seen, and after a fruitless half hour, we decided to make our way upstream, having been given a little more info by local anglers as to where we might find a lunker lady or two.

The fishing was incredibly hard but Glen managed to find a good fish in some fast, shallow water.


This lovely Grayling of 2lb 4oz gave our well spoken angler friend a right scrap, and we shouted encouragement and abuse at him as he tried to land it. All of us green with envy at his success...Roger and I steadily closing in on him, desperate to poach his swim.

Within minutes though Glen had found the big Grayling's partner, and so he landed another, slightly smaller but beautiful fish of just under the 2lb mark.

Both John and Roger landed a few, smaller fish between them, but all agreed that the fishing was incredibly tough, especially me, given the fact that I was coming to terms with the fact that it was looking incredibly likely that today, I'd be on a dreaded blank.

Tyzack, determined as ever, skillfully endeavoured to reach the parts that other anglers cannot reach with fantastic technique, exploring rarely fished swims that must have held fish, but still, there were very few takes.


We spoke to a few of the local anglers about the tough conditions and the common theme seemed to be that freezing cold water had been released from Llyn Clywedog Reservoir, further upstream, and this had killed the fishing, the previous days angling also proving to be relatively tough.

We'd walked miles and taken very few fish, but it was great to be out with the lads and encouraging to see the first tell tale signs of spring being just around the corner, you could smell it in the air.

As ever, Pointon provided the laughter, reeling off, new, unrepeatable stories that had us all in tears. The fishing had tested us to the limit and we were even reduced to having a stone skimming competition, Pointon clearly embarrassed by the skill shown by myself and Tyzack, both of us producing skims of 10 bounces or more to his pathetic 2 or 3 bounces.

But...he caught a couple of lovely lunkers, and I blanked.

Well done Pointon....you ****

David

(Technique) + (Confidence) = (Fish) @ Milldale

I've been an angler since I was a little lad. I've tried ledgering for Chub and Tench, trotting a float for Roach and Dace, and smoking a pack of 20 L&B whilst stillwater float fishing for shy, bank hugging carp in the late summer evenings. All of this I've enjoyed, once that is, I have grown my confidence sufficiently in each technique that I start to catch one or two fish.

I started Fly Fishing about 18 months ago, purely because I was in the Hebrides working quite a bit, and if I wanted to fish with my mates, it would have to be with a fly rod, some Peter Ross, Butcher, and one or two wee Katie MacLarens.

I asked other fishermen, which rod to buy. I would only need one because I wouldn't be fishing that often, I explained, and any more than that would be ridiculous, I'm not like all those other fishermen, I said, no, I'm a one rod man me.

Well where will you be fishing with it, they said, what techniques will you be using, will it be lochs or stillwaters, big rivers, small rivers, deep rivers, shallow rivers, streams, dry fly, wet fly, teams of up to 5 wet fly, duo, New Zealand, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and All?

Yes, I said. Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and All. And so, it was to be, one rod to suit all waters and conditions, one 9Ft 6" 7Wt Orvis that would have to cope with everything from huge Salmon on Jura to tiny wee troots from the Dove...oh how Pointon mocked the "Pike Rod" and how it didn't bend even the tiniest of a fraction when I had a fish momentarily on before the lack of give made it prang off.

But I'd get my revenge. The moment I saw Glen's Hardy 7Ft 3Wt Demon, I mocked him for it's 'weak handshake', ridiculously soft action, and pathetic length. It didn't matter to me that he was catching 3 fish to every 1 of mine.

And so, apparently, having said all that, I appear to have become a bit of a 'Tackle Tart'. Last year, I bought a Streamflex 6Ft 6" 3wt and it changed my fishing completely. I started to catch fish. Then something else happened, Fly Forum's Fishcake showed me the 'duo' technique, and I started to catch more fish.

There's a bit of a chain reaction here because, if you start to get to grips with a technique, you grow confident. If you're comfortable with your rod, so to speak, you grow more confidence. If you start to catch fish, you grow even more confident and so on. You can be casting to a peice of water that is absolutely chocka with fish, but if you're not confident with your technique, tangling in trees, swearing, getting blood pressure, swearing some more, you're not going to catch many fish, and I found out the hard way at the beginning of last season.

Pointon is the perfect example of this. Yesterday, he fished at Milldale and he caught 24 Grayling having decided to use the Czech Nymphing technique that he has become super confident with. I too am a great fan of Czech Nymphing at this time of year and, like Glen, was lucky enough to get some great tuition from John Tyzack whilst fishing the Teviot a couple of weeks ago.

But today, I was determined to fish with a short rod, because at Milldale in particular, I find I can fish more water, avoid tangles, spend more time in the water, and therefore, I catch more fish.

I met Brian at The Yew Tree Inn at 10.30am and he'd join me as a guest on the Dove. It was a beautiful morning but pretty chilly. I thought it looked great for the fishing.


I managed a few small fish from the first few pools and we made our way slowly down towards Ilam Rock. The fishing was tougher down that end and I looked forward to trying my luck in a couple of pools on the way back.

Yesterday, Glen had quite a few fish from his newly named "Deliverance" Pool. Don't ask. He'd told me the exact run where he was taking them and had painstakingly described every detail about the pool over the phone so that I understood where he meant. I had a few casts. Nothing. I had a few more casts. Nothing. So I started to cast an inch or two further towards midstream each time and eventually, when the Klinkhammer and Pheasant Tail Nymph had landed near enough dead on midstream, there was a flash of silver and the Klink had gone.

Fish on.

Tyzack had shown me how to land a Grayling when we were on the Teviot, so again, I was confident and I was always going to land that fish, no matter what.

I cast again. The same spot. A silver flash and a quickly disappearing pink Klink and another Grayling was on.

I cast again. The same spot. Another silver flash and another disappearing pink Klink.

Another great day's fishing and it was great to have a catch up with Brian. I'd caught 7 lovely Grayling, all quite small, but great fun on light tackle.

So I've gone over to the dark side. I've joined "Pointon's Light Brigade", I'm armed to the teeth with short rods and boxes upon boxes of dry flys of all manner of shape size and description, ready for the nearing Trout season and I tell you what...this angler cannot wait.

Oh. The battle cry of Pointon's Light Brigade......"Dry Fly Only".

David