Nearly

I have a bit of a long weekend on but the weather has been rubbish. Looking at my Met office weather app the weather was looking pretty rubbish for Monday too and while it wasn’t ideal ( quite cold overcast and misty) I decided to try a few hours on the Carron again on Sunday, to try keep out of the wind. I went to another section this time, above where I fished on my last outing. Truely I wasn’t that optimistic. Rigged with a big floaty “Lifejacket Sedge” as an indicator fly I suspended a couple of nymph patterns below it. I usually use a Klinkhammer for this but the somewhat grey light can make seeing them a wee bit hard sometimes, and I had seen this lifejacket sedge used on a video recently so I tied my own variant and used it with the nymphs tied off the bend of the hook.

This latter element of the tactic is a risky one. It runs the risk that if a fish comes for the dry it might not hook up properly. However with Klinkhammers tied on proper Klink hooks I find this is not such a big problem. But today I really wasn’t expecting much in the way of top of the water action so was content to set up the Sedge this way. In any case, what fish is gonna take a Sedge at this time of year? This one doesn’t even look that real as it has a Aero dry under wing and tail.

As I was having a look where I was going to fish, unbelieveably a fish rose, and it was a fair splash, I didn’t think it was a small fish. I decided to move and try get below the fish though the wading looked hard and deep and the casting room was somewhat restricted. Nothing ventured though, nothing gained. When the fish rose it was out in the middle of the stream, so my first few casts were aimed there. It was a long way with the 4 weight and with limited casting room behind. I did manage a tailing loop while trying to side cast upstream. With the flies sorted out from that I tried again, and this time the fish rose hard over to the left near a wall that descended into the river. I tried a few casts but I felt was just falling short, though being short rather than long allowed me to see if the fish was hanging back and moving forward for the flies. No takers so maybe it was further up. I edged down onto some flat slippery looking rocks in the river and tried again. This time the flies landed right on target and instantly there was a rise and it was fish on. It wasn’t small, and it wasn’t happy. As soon as it realised it was hooked it took a run across the river and then disaster! The line went slack. My biggest fear was confirmed, with taking the dry tied like this it had been able to slip the hook. Maybe I should have used a conventional dropper but really wasn’t expecting a take from the top of the water. The fish was bound to be gone but a few more casts to see if there were any other residents under the foam line, nothing. So I decided to move on.

It was quite hard to find water I felt was likely to be deep enough to hold fish. The next run I fished was a tad shallow so I didn’t linger here long. I noticed another angler appear on the far bank from where I had just been fishing and lost the fish, and I wondered if he would have any luck or had I disturbed the pool already?

I moved further down finding a bit of a gentle glide at a reasonable depth. Not really deep, easy to wade but deep enough to hold fish, but had to tackle this from upstream, killing the downstream cast and feeding line in as the flies dead drifted away from me until I could not keep up, and retreived to cast again. I managed to cover the water at the top here easily  before becoming snared in a bush. Unsnagged I wasn’t sure what to do next. I could see further downstream looked a bit “thin” and was toying with heading back to the car and moving somewhere else.

Casting downstream to cover the run below

I don’t know what it is about rivers, I alway have this feeling that just round the next corner is “the beat to die for”. I felt obligated to move down once more. I had to go back for my rucksack, and then wade back down and try to find an easy way to get out the river onto the far bank to make my way down edging round a field. When I went back for the rucksack I noticed loads of flies coming off the water, in the still eddie near where I had stopped. They were everywhere, climbing up my waders. I am pretty sure these were March Browns. They were everywhere. I decided to pause for a while and watch and see if any fish were going to  move for them as they were slowly picked up by the river to drift downstream. Nothing seemed interested in them though after watching a good 15 minutes. I fished on and the shallower water turned out to be deeper than I anticipated in places but still gave up no fish.

Finding an exit from the river I edged round a field and found another nice wee glide, again on the shallow side but with a couple of nice foam lines and likely spots to find fish. Again lots of over hanging trees were here but I side casted round them as I worked up the glide. I was pretty knackered by now and was ready to head back but had a quick look below some faster water and could see another section with a little depth, so I gave this a ten minute explore before deciding enough was enough. I headed back to the car across the field and crossing the foot bridge. I decided as I passed just to have one more try where I had lost the fish, “just in case”. But despite getting some really good long casts right up into the foam line nothing took. Then I realised where was my net? Oh no! I had snagged it on a tree as I made my way from one section to another earlier on but thought I had reattached it to my magnetic clip. I couldn’t recall when I last seen it. I usually wear it on my back but recently with the rucksack its a bit of a nuisance so have been experimenting with wearing it on my wading belt. I went back over the bridge to retrace my steps. Looking  across stream where I had been but I couldn’t see it. It then occurred to me that maybe I could tell from my videos I had been filming when I last had it. I sat and reviewed and realised I must have lost it around the time I had unhooked it from the tree and reattached it. That was on the other side of the river so  back again over the bridge and worked my way down looking where I walked. There had been a few dog walkers in the time I had been down there so I really did not expect to find it, but there in the grass about 20 yard beyond the snaggy tree was my net. Phew! Not sure how it had come off again but I had it back and now at last I could head for the car. Not a bad day out, good fun with the hooked fish, nearly a fish, nearly a lost net.