Royal Wulff

I fished on Friday and you couldn’t imagine a more perfect day for it: muggy, overcast and with no wind. The river is still quite high and strong-flowing after the very wet spell we had and weed growth seems to be good this year; quite a contrast to last season. I arrived at lunch time and things were fairly quiet with one or two mayfly showing but the odd rising fish weren’t taking these as there were a lot of black gnats on the surface and a few small olives and sedges were also showing. However, fish soon started taking the odd mayfly dun and after a slashing take a very good fish went tearing off downstream. After several minutes I managed to get him level with me and saw that it was a nice 2 lb fish but unfortunately he tore off downstream again and slipped the hook!

After this disappointing start I managed to land a few 11-13” fish before hooking a better trout which I managed to land this time at 2-5 on a small CDC emerger. After releasing the fish Dave R joined me for a few hours and promptly went one better by landing a lovely golden trout of 2-6! Shortly after Dave left the river I hooked a long fish which I honestly thought was approaching the magical 3 lb mark but although he was over 18” long, he turned out to be a very lean wild fish (see photo) that coincidently also went 2-5. This fish took a Royal Wulff and after releasing him I went on to take a couple more on the same fly.

Late afternoon/evening and I went back on to the mayfly and by this time quite a few trout were greedily slashing at the spinners. Several more fish were landed but it was by no means an easy task as they were becoming very choosy, often only taking mayfly that were hovering just above the surface. All in all a very enjoyable day and it was so nice to see the fishery in such a good condition.

Regards,
Hoot