I haven’t been able to get out for an evening’s cast recently, with on call commitments and the weather, and the nights are fair drawing in so you pretty well need to be off the water by nine and getting there for seven to give a couple of meaningful hours is hard. But tonight I made the effort and managed a couple of hours up at Pendreich. I was able to grab the boat as I felt it was my best chance to cover any rising fish. On first look and for the first 20 minutes I never seen a fish move. I had tied on an ” experimental ” Daddy Longlegs. Daddy’s are not my favourite fishing fly, though I know for some anglers, say dry fly they mean Daddy Longlegs. At times its a bit like the Damsel Lure of the dry fly world. But at this time of the year, kick the grass and you almost certainly disturb 3 or 4 of them, so fish are presumably on the look out for them. I will be doing a wee video on my easy peasy detached-body Daddy in the next week or two and you can give it a go yourself, see what you think. I was convinced if I found a rising fish I would snare it.
A lovely Brown trout with the Daddy still in it’s mouth
And so it was. A couple of fish rose in my vicinity. Fortunately I had just dropped the anchor on the boat as I was mulling changing to a team of wets as nothing was showing on top when two showed , one to my right the other right in front of me. I covered the latter, and landed the Daddy right on the spot where it rose, first go, skill or just lucky? You decide! lol.
The fish rose and supped the daddy right in. A Brownie about a pound, and despite being barbless the fly was a total bee-atch to get out the fish’s mouth. But eventually it was free and away. I lifted anchor and drifted on but the odd fish rising wasn’t taking any notice and was rarely rising in the same place. I decided it was time to swap to a Sedge as a few had flitted over the stern of the boat. The sun was by now setting and the sky turned the most amazing reds and oranges and this was reflected in the water. It was really quite stunning. My fly was a simple sedge pattern that I happened to have in my fly patch but after about 6 or 7 casts and one refusal from a fish the CDC fly was waterlogged. I decided to make the effort and fish out a Bubble wing CDC Sedge from my box and put this out in the vicinity of a rise that happened as I tied the fly on. Bang, another take and I fought the fish in water that was blood red, reflecting the sunset behind me. Another fine fish about a pound that was away.
I’d had enough by now as the sky was darkening and headed for the bank but most enjoyable in pleasant conditions.
