Piddle looked stunning

John,

As my management is away doing her Granny duties I have been living up the river for the last couple of days. I even thought about moving into that nice tent that I spotted along the bank. Tuesday was the lower stretch followed by a session further up. The Mayfly did not really start to appear until around midday. The hatch was rather sparse but enough to bring on a reasonable rise and I was pleased to catch a modest wild fish as well as a couple of stockies. The afternoon session above  was not very productive. Another stretch looked a bit sad because of a lack of water.

Yesterday I started off at the Piddle. There were very few Mayfly about but at around midday a few fish started to show although the hatch never really got going before I left at 1400. Nevertheless there were enough rising fish to make life interesting and I was rewarded with one of these beautiful wild Piddle fish of about ¾ lbs. The Piddle looked stunning and I just had to take a picture. There is no doubt that Piddle water is gin clear and much superior to Frome water. Notwithstanding the purity of the water I decided to go back to the Frome and continue my exploration of the side streams. This was a good decision. When I started the afternoon session a few Mayfly were fluttering above the water and as the afternoon progressed they started to hatch in ones and twos.  By the time I packed up at 1730 5 fish all above 1 ½ lbs had been landed including one of 18 inches which could hardly fit into my scoop net. I was fishing with a Grey Wulff.

Cheers,
Jim