Just Me, the Frogs and the River

Back in the Valley

I haven’t fished the Clyde in a while and with weekday time on my hands now, I hope I can explore more of the River Clyde than I have before. Not pressured by being there on a Saturday and Sunday, trying to find somewhere easy to access and not too busy and no longer feeling I have to make a day of it or conversely be back at a particular time, basically I can come and go as I please now.

Alright, I know there is the small matter of an hour’s drive, but it also means if I find myself down that way for some reason I can double up and grab fishing as it suits. This was the case today. A Photography Roadshow was being hosted at Strathclyde Park by the Society of Photographers and I decided to head along there to see if there was much of interest for me. I have to say there wasn’t. The “seminars” were mainly about studio/wedding photography, neither being subjects that hold much interest for me….wouldn’t mind a go at Studio shooting but I won’t be shelling out money for that kind of equipment.

And none of the trade stands were selling anything of interest to me, the main manufacturers there were Canon, Sony and Fujifilm and I use Nikon….ho hum.

So I didn’t stay long and decided to head over to the Anglers Attic in Wishaw to get myself an Annual permit for the Clyde. I had a great blether with the guy in the shop, I think his name is Gordon, and got some info on where I was toying with going. A section of the Clyde Valley section of the UCAPA water at Dalserf. I have driven down there before but was never really sure if it was OK to park up opposite the wee cottages.

Into the Valley

I learned that this was OK so that’s where I headed. I feel the river up top is going to be desperately low, given how little rainfall we have had this April. We had a little on Sunday night but not enough to freshen up a river like the Clyde. I see the forecast for the next few days includes a fair bit rain for the South of Scotland so maybe that will lift things a bit.

I was particularly hopeful I might be able to fish dries. The day was warming up nicely with some broken cloud and none of that very cold breeze that’s brought a bit of a chill to some otherwise cloudless days in recent weeks. But that would require patience, usually at this time of the year, fly life is limited, and apt to come off in short-lived hatches that will bring fish as if from nowhere, to the surface where they feed for a few minutes then disappear back to whence they came, untouchable.

You typically want to be on either something looking like the veritable Clyde Gadger…the stonefly, a big dark caddis pattern often suffices, or something replicating the March Brown, like the Jingler. Sometimes, you get hatches of small Blue-Winged Olives, though they can be harder to identify. I reached the water and was surprised to find it was quite cloudy looking. While you could still see the bottom looking out across the river it had a very obvious grey/green tinge to it. The greyness made me think it was effluent of some sort, but usually such events align with heavy rainfall and overburdened sewers being released to the river. You do hear of pollution events on the Clyde but it is far from the worst river for such things and is usually very clean-looking. The greenness I wondered if it might be algal bloom from the low dry conditions this month? However, there was no sign of Rock Snot which is usually evident on some less clean rivers where nitrates allow green slime algae to flourish. It certainly surprised me anyway.

It was a bit challenging finding my way onto the bank ( I definitely didn’t walk down the most efficient way). But having got there and studied the water for a while I became aware of something watching me from the water. It was a fat-looking frog with another on its back. I assume this is some sort of spawning/mating behaviour. I watched the pair of frogs for a while and am pretty sure they watched me. Nothing moved in the water, and frankly, it was pretty flat and featureless here, but I felt there might have been a chance of picking up a fish from the feeding line of foam midwater-ish, but it would probably be better on a nymph. So I tied on a Klink and Dink set up, with an olive Klink and a small scruffy black nymph tied off the bend of the hook. It seemed as good a way as any to prospect for any fish lying in the deeper water.

The wading was very easy and the water only seemed to reach a little over waist height out in the river. I reckon had I been feeling bold and so inclined that I could probably have crossed the river to the far bank but I wasn’t out for that kind of adventure today, I was happy to explore some new water to me and just enjoy some nice conditions for the time of year.

So I gave a section of about 20-30 metres a decent fish through not eliciting any interest from anything piscine, and never saw anything rise to the odd small fly that came off here and there.

Returning to the bank I decided to take a wander downstream and see if I was missing anything. I eventually came to a corner where the water was much more broken and I suspect when a little higher this might be a place to try, but the water seemed even greyer down here. It was a cracking day to be out though and I did have a wee seat on an anglers bench and took in the scenery. Lots of wild Dafodils and Wild Garlic on the banks definitely filled the senses.

I wanted to see what lay upstream as well but could not really work out how to get there. The bank area was split up by a huge tangle of thorns and briars that I wasn’t keen to try negotiate. The adjacent field was full of cows with calves so I wasn’t terribly motivated to get too close to them. I don’t usually bother about cows but when they have young they can be arsey and I don’t have the mobility these days to be able to do a runner should I need to!

The only other way I could work out how to get there was to go back to where I parked and then try edging down one of the planted fields but I didn’t want to piss off any farmers doing that. I had killed a few hours and had a wee look at the river here so decided it was enough for today, nothing had moved either to a natural or imitation fly while I was looking so it likely wasn’t going to happen now and I had to be home for a online meeting this evening anyway so packed up and headed. Yes a blank, but not a waste of time and I will be getting out more down there this season I hope.