Satisfaction

I had a few hours on the River Carron again this afternoon. It’s almost becoming a routine to go there on a Sunday. Its not deliberate, it just seems to work out that way. I headed for another new section I hadn’t fished before, but had had a look at last time I was out. I wasn’t sure how I would tackle it when I seen it last time, though it looked deep and fishy, it also looked fairly static, not the easiest water to fish a nymph or dry-fly through. This last week though I seen a video on YouTube by Jonathon Barnes of OnStreamGuide.com, and he demonstrated a method of upstream river streamer fishing that looked like it might well be ideal for such slack water.

I have embedded the video showing how to tie the flies and the other demonstrating the technique at the bottom of this post.

I tied a couple of the streamers used in the video, and when I arrived at the section I had chosen to fish, it was raining quite heavily, there were no fish to be seen and I thought, I might as well tie one on and give it a swim. Now I have to say I have no idea what the river is like for small bait fish or minnows, certainly I haven’t seen any but I am sure they are here somewhere. It was well apparent that there had been some other anglers here before me, maybe not today, but I suspect the evening prior, judging by the rod rests that had been fashioned and left in place. So not fly anglers. I am not sure at all if they would be fishing legally or poaching. I wondered if any fish would be left in the pool, it looked , from the rod rests made that there had probably been 4 rods here, a bit much for a pool of no more than 20 yards long.

I fished it through with the 4 weight rod and was very impressed with the way the jig hook tied streamer fished, as it rose and fell in the water that was fairly coloured up. The slimy rock snot was still evident but I have to say it was less of an issue in the main flow today. Whatever, however well the streamer swam, it never got the attention of any fish. By now the rain was off and indeed the sun appeared. A cloud of large upwings, I hesitate to call them Mayfly, they weren’t the large cream mayflies beloved of clear water chalk streams, but they were some variety of similar fly, was dancing near where I had set my rucksack/seat down and I retired to change flies and cover a few riseforms I had seen as the rain dissipated, at the bottom of the pool.

Before I tied on a brown size 14 dry-fly, similar in size and colour I thought to the large flies I decided to do a quick sample in the shallower faster moving water at the foot of the pool. The results were quite interesting. My net was festooned with hundreds of Rhyacophila. Given my kick sample came from maybe 2 square feet of river bed there must be some awesome hatches of sedge like flies later in the season! The colours were variable from the classic deep green with the black  thorax portion, to almost translucent golden olive. There were still numbers of big fat brown/olive stone clingers. Hopefully you find the images interesting.

I must add while fish were rising, it really wasn’t evident what they were rising to, it wasn’t by any means obvious if it was these big may fly style “ephemera”.

It was hard to say if the fish rising were sizeable or not, I suspect, most were tiddlers, and I had a fair few splashes at my fly from these small fish. But there were I think, a couple of decent sized fish here, one I caught sight of its golden flanks as it rose for some fly, the rise was barely perceptible but the unmistakable flash of gold belied a bigger fish. Another fish at one point carved an arc in the water round me and again had to be of some reasonable size judging by the wake but I never caught a glimpse.

I tried a few patterns with these fish in the dry spells, from CDC olive Comparaduns, to Greenwells and pheasant tail dries. I wasn’t getting much reaction. As another heavy down pour started and forced me into the shelter of a bush I decided to change to a bushy life jacket Caddis pattern with a Rhyac nymph pattern below. Maybe this would get some interest from the fish. But no, nothing showed interest and as the rain passed and the sun reappeared and the rises started again, sometimes the fish were splashing inches from my fly but clearly not at it, I decided enough, time for a move. I was going to move upstream as I had been able to see up there on the approach, from the bridge above but I was curious what was downstream and it seemed easier to get to so went for a look. This proved to be a great decision as round the bend was a wonderful over hung run, of fast deeper water, and nice glides between. In many ways fly fishing heaven.

But were there any fish? I wasn’t seeing any signs, but there were just millions of insects! The air was full of millions of insects, from tiny midges which seemed to rise in pairs to larger duns and a few of the bigger upwings. But I seen no fish taking them. I made m way to the bottom of the glide and started my way up , by now my top fly was a klinkhammer. But after fishing through a few likely looking lies without any interest, I decided to recover my flies and change to a small deer hair Comparadun with three nice long tails, very like the small olive duns I was seeing occasionally. As i was tying on this fly a fish rose right where I had just fished through and it seemed to be suggestive of something maybe a little bigger. With the fly on, the leader and fly all treated appropriately I cast over the spot I had seen the rise. The first couple of casts were ignored but then there was a rise and a take, it seemed a very dark coloured fish and the rod bent, though not enough to convince me it was anything sizeable, I began to recover line and then it went slack, the fish was off! I wasn’t too despondent as I felt at least now I was on the right fly! I cleaned the slime off and dried it off and readied to fish again. Another rise showed ahead and I just worked my way up towards it covering all the water  with fish holding properties.  The fish had risen again, the rise was tiny but you really can’t judge a fish by the size of the rise. I cast over the rough area. Nothing. It took a few casts then I got one right on the correct line, Sometimes you just know when you have it right and it was really no surprise when there was a dimple under my fly and we were in! And it wasn’t a bad wee fish either. An unmarked so I presume wild fish of about half a pound. Sometimes you get so much satisfaction from catching a fish, you just want to savour the moment. It was no giant but was extremely welcome, I felt I had earned it.

 

I covered a few more rises as I made my way back upstream but by now I was about done and I headed off home. Another fine afternoon on the river. Its turning out to be a great wee river this for me.

On Stream guide video’s on upstream streamer fishing