Leopards

You can't get too much of a good thing and once again the test was fantastic. It forecast two days of continual rain but that never showed and it made for a pleasant trip and a great group.

It started well and i had this lovely brown on Beat 11 in the morning. It came up and took my size 16 klink brilliantly. However there was a hatch of Pale Watery Dun's sailing downstream and i couldn't imitate them properly. Another couple of grayling and a brown made for a lovely day.

The following day we thought we would take the long walk top beat 3 as neither Phil or i had fished that far down before. It was a lovely morning with the sun glinting on the water and plenty of wildlife about. Can you beleive it Mick was there already and had taken his car, never mind there was plenty of room. There were good numbers of fish rising but i didn't have the perfect flies. Fishing a duo of a black klinkerhammer gold bead hares ear gave me a few options and a bit of stealth kneeling behind the reads and an old tree stump gave the fish confidence to keep rising. I had two brownies that were very different and almost leopard like spots. They were very colourful fish.

A i walked back up river i knelt by a bend in the river and i could see a shoal of small grayling sitting on the bottom. I took the dry off and and dangled the hares ear in front of them. It took me ages to get any interest but i found by lying the fly on the bottom and lifting infront of a fish triggered a take. They were a bit fussy but i managed to induce a couple.

A few more fish later and the evening was pulling in and we started to head back a Buck and Doe Fallow Deer put in an appearance until they got scent of us and made a run for it.