Saturday I fished a tributary to the river Wye just on the Welsh borders, the colour of the water here takes on a most unusual turquoise hue this time of year and is typical of a lot of other streams in this area.
Although conditions seemed good the going proved to be a bit of a challenge, this has to be quite possibly the toughest time to fish our rivers with the Grayling going out of season and the Trout in a sort of torpor until temperatures get a bit higher.
The nice thing about this particular bit of water is there is a good average size of the Grayling with some real beauties to be caught.
After 6 hours of fairly intensive fishing I managed to net a total of 9 (including 2 trout) with a few more slipping the hook, although 4 of these fish were taken from one pool.
This I would say was quite typical of fishing this time of year...fish to be found in small pockets and long stretches of river seemingly fishless.
I now look forward to the coming months when the sun actually generates some warmth on the body and the dry fly is on the end of my tippet and not in a flybox buried deep in my vest pocket. Part of the pleasure of fly fishing is that every season has something that generates anticipation for the 'all year round' flyfisher.
