Therapy for aching feet

I’ve been on my travels a lot recently with work and got back late on Friday night. Frankly the travelling and aches and pains had taken their toll and I have pretty much done nothing all weekend except rest, recover and take anti inflammatories for my aching feet. They really are killing me right now. But I am not going to sit here and let this stupid condition get the better of me so after a bit of a lie in this morning ( having planned ahead and taken a days leave) I was of a mood to get out fishing though really I could easily have spent the day in front of the telly trying not to move. It does that to you, arthritis, making you want to not move when some sort of physical activity is essential.

While it looked as miserable and windy out the window as it has been all weekend ( and indeed for me anyway having been in Bristol all last week) much the same as there too. But on opening the front door it felt like someone had turned on a huge fan heater, it was really warm!

So I concocted a plan.

Plan A: head to the river, get the waders on and fish as long as my feet would tolerate.

if the river was manky ( and we had some really heavy rain overnight so I wasn’t too optimistic to be honest) then

Plan B: drive round by Loch Coulter and se if the wind was too strong to allow fishing or not.

Plan C:….. well I didn’t really have one, likely head home and spend the rest of the day not moving!

Short line nymphing on the Carron

I decided to fish the upper reaches of the Carron today and in the event covered a lot of water I reckon rarely see’s a rod. In between there are some clearly heavy foot fall sections that being so easy to access makes them the target for those with little interest in leaving the river as they found it. Bottles, crisp packets, remnants of fires, polystyrene take away containers and poly bags just dumped by makeshift rod rests….. I also removed a good 10 metres of 10-15lb nylon that was hanging from a tree with a float wrapped in a branch. It took me all my strength to get the line clear of the tree, though the float and presumably the hook is still lodged in the branch of the tree, I got most of the line away and safely disposed of. What kind of fish do you need 15lb nylon under a float to land…..

Take only pictures , leave only foot prints….. in a perfect world.

Anyway back to the fishing. I started at the bridge at Dunipace and had my first fish on my two nymph set up on my second cast. A sharp stabbing take that belied the size of the fish, not big but wild as the hills with pectoral fins easily the size of fully mature fish. It reminded me of those wee spiny fish you get in the sea that “walk” around on their pectorals, Gurnurds or Dragonets. But a right bonny wee fish with bright red spots, it took a wee 47 nymph. I seen one fish rise here too but this was to be the sole rising fish I seen all afternoon.

In Carron Glen, you can see the sheer walls of rock eroded by millenia of a river running through here.

I worked up through some pretty fast water until I reached another deeper run and number two, smaller than the first, took the same fly in water that was barely 4″ deep. I slightly mis-cast and was shocked when I seen the indicator dart off. With half an hour or so under my belt and my feet in cold water for most of this time it felt wonderful. It then went very quiet fish wise and by the time I reached the foot bridge at the top of the park, I hadn’t had so much as a touch even in water that looked promising. I went under the bridge and found somewhere to stop and take a break, and rethink things. I pulled up a few rocks and two things were apparent below, really black stone clingers ( think this means they are near to moulting) and quite a few wriggly Rhyac’s in a sort of pale tan colour. I had some rhyac patterns I tied a while back though in olive, but they are not very heavy. So I decided to tie a heavy black nymph on the dropper and fish the rhyac on point and see if that helped keep it near the bottom. First lob into the fast water and I had a definite pull, second cast, another small wild fish. It took the black nymph. Next cast another wee fish slightly bigger than the previous. Again on the black. Annoyingly having just tied up a new leader I then got snagged on a  tree and lost both flies trying to free it so had to sit and tie a fresh leader and fish out two more flies.

Fishing takes you to some odd spots. Right between the two carriageways of the M80, fortunately not at the same altitude.

I then  worked my way up river through some pretty hard to get to spots I would venture that hardly see an angler, until I reached the M80 bridges over the river. I had fish in pairs at a couple of spots, i.e. when I got one, I got a second almost immediately after at a couple of spots. I was quite surprised that I was able to get all the way up to above the M80 bridge and covered a lot of water. And my feet felt great.

A wee river jewel. small but no less pretty for it. One of 8 I had mostly on black nymphs

In total I had 8 small wild fish and lost my ninth which felt like the best of the day on pretty well what was t be my last cast right at the top as far as i was going to go. All the fish bar the first two were on a black nymph. I have to say though, while the numbers might be OK I have not had a solitary bigger fish this season from the Carron which is a tad disappointing. The weather stayed fair too with a heavy shower right at the start but it brightened up and was very warm and sunny as I made my way back to the car and the feet started to make their presence known once again. C’est la vie.