A Clyde Joy

The end of the season is fast drawing near and I reminded myself the other day there that I have not ventured out on the Clyde at least once in this past season. I haven’t had the best fishing summer it has to be said, I have been out a lot less than I would normally go, mainly due to sore feet kind of giving an excuse not to want to spend time on them, work, having been away on a lot of courses this year…. and more to come and weather. My pager was switched off on Friday morning for another month, and while I went to bed on Friday night having spent the evening with an ice pack wrapped round my left foot, as its been quite swollen by bedtime, I was determined to try make an effort to get out at a reasonable time on Saturday morning and try get at least a short session on the River Clyde.

Anglers upstream of me in the water I had fished earlier

I was awake in reasonable time and forced my stiff limbs out of bed and into the shower before dawning my thermal LJ’s and grabbing my wader socks from the sock drawer, them having not seen the light of day for a whole summer. Dressed, I sought out a permit on Fishpal, I only learned the night before that UCAPA tickets are now available online, saving the usual trek to find a post office open in the wee South Lanarkshire villages of the Clyde Valley, and the usual faff, while you queue behind some old dear that decided to post her entire Christmas list of presents to Vanuatu or Outer Mongolia, and the post master/mistress has to weigh every item  and work out the postage rates. You know what I mean, it ALWAYS happens when you are in a hurry!

The Clyde, quite stunning at this time of year

Today I could drive down the road following the river, and seek out some new water, there are occasional lay by’s, though never enough when you see an interesting section, and in typical fashion this bright warm morning, every possible stopping place had one or two cars already there. I was starting to fear I might be already too late, it was just after 9, and I might struggle to find a bit of accessible and fishable water. Having passed a number of spots I arrived at Mauldslie and nipped in here to have a look. Downstream looked OK,  though there were easily 6 cars here,  but upstream and a spot I am slightly familiar with had two and maybe three anglers in the water. Stay or go? I was finding it hard to decide. I decided to take my chances further upstream.

I arrived at my next spot expecting it to be rammed, but there wasn’t a soul here. Granted a few cars were parked but it is a popular dog walking spot and a quick glance over the parapet of the bridge seemed to suggest no one on the water. Alone!

I tackled up taking the time to set up a 4# rod for dry and wet fly use, and my 3# bugging rod for fishing a pair of heavy jig nymphs. The water was a great height and arguably for short line techniques a great colour, not murky but carrying enough colour and pace to obscure the careless angler. I tend to move slowly at the best of times in the river which is never a bad thing when fishing, but having the camouflage of a slightly coloured water can only help. Ideally I would have fished upstream, but in any sort of pace my feet and knees can’t hack the pressure, so I  accept that  in much over knee depth and above, downstream it needs to be.

Lots of these were here- first year Grayling- probably this last spring’s brood.

I made my way out to a run I know and started fishing, and I thought I had a couple of wee knocks but nothing of real note and did not feel I was really getting on to the bottom with my two nymphs, a light olive Perdigon and a favourite orange ribbed flashback nymph on the top dropper, so it came off and the top fly was replaced by a slightly heavier black French nymph “variant”. I make this process of a quick fly change sound fast but in reality, it was anything but.

A couple of seasons ago I noticed my eyes starting to struggle with changing small flies in anything less than perfectly bright conditions. As time has marched on this has got worse to the point where I can’t now focus on the eye of a fly at anything closer than arms length and that’s no good threading 0.10mm Stroft onto a size 16 bug. I have been using the Snowbee clip on magnifiers under the brim of my hat but three times now the darned things have cracked and broken at the plastic hat clip. I don’t think I have managed more than 6 or 7 months out a set and am very reluctant despite their usefulness to part with another £15 for these items with such a lack of robustness. Why not a metal hat clip- is it really that hard? I had brought my reading glasses but they are no substitute for magnification in these circumstances. I must have spent 10 minutes sorting out replacing this bug.

Slightly out of focus- apologies- first grayling of the day

Right away though I was getting down, and right away I had a proper pull, even seeing the splash of the fish below me in the river. It never fails to amaze how a small change can suddenly make a difference. I run my bugs a second time through the exact same spot, and this time the indicator stopped the pull was firm and I lifted into a fish. A great wee fight and while I initially thought it was a trout, in fact it turned out to be a decent Grayling maybe of about 3/4 a pound. Not huge but  nothing to be ashamed of! It had taken the Perdigon.

After this I had three smaller Grayling on the trot all on the black Frenchie, and then my first small trout of the day- all these fish were arguably this years fish. It is the first time I have had juvenile Grayling on the Clyde, and shows there is a good healthy stock coming through for future years. I then had a second trout of about the same size as the Grayling but managed to drop it before I could get a photo. With 6 fish I was pondering a move to another spot when the first angler I had seen here appeared just where I was going to try , so I held on a little while longer and managed one more wee Grayling.

Bugging the Clyde

After a bit of a break to rest I had moved further down stream to water that while still tricky to wade, is slower and involves less water pressure. As I sat I seen a fish rise midstream and the splash suggested a good-sized trout. I tried to fish a single dry over the spot but got no offer and it never showed again here, though a short time later fish of similar size rose right over by the far bank. I changed to a duo, of a small olive quill dry parachute fly and a tiny French Nymph, around a size 20 but this never got any interest, though I thought I detected a bit of a pull when I had let it run downstream of me and while I was sorting some slack line there was a distinct knock from the bug downstream. I then bugged down this slower water with  a slightly lighter Frenchie on point and the same variant one on dropper and had another couple of small Grayling all to the one on the dropper again. Further down I did venture right out midstream, hoping I might find some easy route to let me fish the far side but the depth beat me each time, being vertically challenged has serious drawbacks!

The water where I fished the morning was now a bit like Piccadilly Circus with three or four anglers now on it. I decided to head upstream, if it was busy I would call it a day as truthfully I was feeling it a little now but when I got upstream, there wasnt a soul visible again.

The three bugs that worked for me, the middle seemd most popular with the Grayling, the pink most popular with Trout.

After a nice wee rest on the river bank I made ready to ease myself into the water.  A couple of steps out and from behind an overhanging tree about 5 metres above me appeared another angler. I had not seen him at all as I sat in the relatively long grass. I apologised and offered to move out again but he seemed unbothered and said ” nah your OK I was thinking of going further down”. We stopped and chatted for a bit, he was fishing wee spiders and had had a couple of small fish too he said. I did tell him it was busy downstream but he made his way out where I had entered and I was again alone.

Final wee clyde trout

The wading here is pretty hard as there are a lot of big boulders but I seemed to get the measure of it fairly quickly and using my wading stick carefully was able to fish right out to mid river. I initially had no real interest so decided a change was needed and in any case, again I wasn’t feeling the bottom so initially went back to the light olive Perdigon, but with no takers after 15 minutes swapped this to a pink one. This livened things up and I soon had a small trout on this pink bug, then I hooked but failed to land a couple more before I finally got a decent sized wild brown on the Perdigon.

So I don’t know what that was 10 or 11 fish for a day out? My feet were past the point of overdoing it and as ever I had probably fished too long but I had such a good time, reaching double figures albeit with mostly wee fish, but great, great fun and a very pleasant day to be on the river.