Little egrets for company

I had a good day on DFC water yesterday with eight grayling up to 40cm, one tiny sprod grayling of less than 10cm,

plus a couple of wild browns (possibly the same fish once in the morning and again later in the afternoon). I fished through the area we discussed with small tungsten bead nymphs, size 16 and 14 and initially had one brown, about 20cm, four grayling 32cm to 40cm, and the sprod grayling, I weighed the 40cm fish which was close to 2lbs. I also had a couple of little egrets for company for the first half hour of fishing, they didn’t seem too concerned about my presence.

Moved up into the hatch pool where I hooked but dropped a fish so continued above the hatches where I missed a further fish in a nice glide. I wandered a bit further upstream to renew my acquaintance with this stretch of water and came across salmon and possibly large sea trout busy on redds in a run between a series of bends.

I had a quick lunch watching the fish at work, then had a further grayling on a pink litebrite shrimp pattern out of the glide near the white cottage.

Continuing upstream I came across further salmon activity and spent part of the afternoon trying to get a reasonable photos of spawning activity using the camera through the lens of my polaroids. Due to low light conditions the results weren’t great but the best of the photos at least shows the extent of a redd with fish on the far side of it close to the bank.

I finally dropped back to where I had commence the day and had a further three grayling between 27cm to 30cm plus

What I reckon was the same trout as earlier in the day. I had a real heart stopping moment whilst trying to free my line from one of the rocks in the pool when a cock salmon with a hugh kipe showed itself a few feet behind where my line was snagged. I briefly thought that it might not be a rock that I was pulling against but the fish return to its lie whilst I continued my losing battle with the rock. There were a few fish rising during the afternoon but I stuck it out with my sub surface tactics.

I hope to get back sometime next week as the river, although low, is in great condition. As there are so many fishing distractions I will bring a proper camera and filters to see if I can get some better shots of the salmon activity.

Best wishes,
Tony