Being sociable and showing good etiquette

Fishing alone is great, you can focus on the job in hand and you will have the run of the river. Fishing with friends is fun too and it’s nice to be a little sociable every now and again. If fishing with friends, or your on a busy water, you need to follow good etiquette.

With a regular fishing partner this is all quite natural. It starts before you leave the house, like who drives; taking it in turn without really discussing it. Perhaps, if a meal is involved, usually on longer sessions, then KG will bring his pork based products one time and I will make a butties another. Often a treat will be slipped into the food bag, like a nice cold can of Stella! Sometimes we like to share a ‘proper’ meal like Dynamite Stag Chilli and Rice....then text each other the next day comparing bowel movements!

When selecting how to fish a beat a natural system forms, in our case its short sticks. If we divide the beat into two then the one who draws the short stick gets the longest walk to start. On some waters, like the upper Dove we alternate pools between the stone weirs. This is a lot more sociable and we will stop for a brew on a regular basis. A word of caution; if you have been drinking Stella avoid wading and dont stick your finger in the top of a lit Kelly Kettle!

We always fish up stream; this is good etiquette and should be followed by all river anglers. It is a sensible approach to stalking Trout but also saves on any confusion.

A good example from this recent outing was some numpty who decided it was OK to work his way down stream. The guy had little water craft and no manners. The inevitable happened and a pool that I was working up, nice and steady, ended up getting spoilt because he just jumped in at the top, scaring any decent fish for 50 yards downstream – I can’t stand rude people! If you fish rivers do everyone a favour; start at the down stream end and work your way UP RIVER!

All in a spin

I don’t like crowds when I'm fishing, I don't like crowds much at all come to think of it. I like having the river to myself, don’t we all? There are some waters where this is hard to achieve and some waters where its damm near impossible. If you can't do owt about it then, I guess, you learn to tolerate it or fish somewhere else.

Wolfscotedale on the Dove is water a bit like that. Only a couple of miles from Hartington, a very popular base for walkers, there are times when you think the procession of blue and red anoraks will never cease.

I used to fish Dovedale on the Leek and District ticket and that was very similar. In fact I read a report recently that said this was the second most visited spot in a national park next to Mount Fuji. It certainly felt like that at times but I learnt a few valuable lessons which apply at Wolfscotedale and probably many other stretches of river popular with the general public or, as I like to refer to them when I have rod in hand, noisy scumbags! Those lessons were, in no particular order but I will give them one anyway...

Firstly, that the fish actually get used to scumbags walking next to the river, they will carry on feeding but they tend to be a little more cautious of anything over or on the river.

Secondly, the fish will adapt to the scumbag hatch/fly hatch cycle and make the most of the early morning and late evening but that they become ultra cautious of bankside activity at these times.

Thirdly, scumbags don’t rise until 9am and are not seen making noise and merriment before 10am. They need long, big, hearty meals before a long sleep and are at the dinner table by 7pm and so desert the riverside by 6pm.

Finally, Scumbag hatching cycles increase at the weekend - avoid at all costs!

I arrived at Wolfscotedale at 6.30pm to find one car in the car park. He'd been fishing since 3.30 so it was a good guess that he would not be fishing late. This was a good sign, not many of the Derby County AC anglers’ fish the spinner fall even though it can be very good fishing.

There was little activity on the river and no activity on the footpath. Nothing really happened until about 9pm when the first fish started that classic rising pattern of trout feeding on spinners; a porpoys..poirpose..porposie..dolphin like rise where the head comes out first slowly rolling along the back until the dorsal fin shows. I like this kind of rise, you get a good feel for the size of fish.

Although I had been at the river two hours already the Pheasant Tail tied spinner pattern was already in the butt ring.

Five lovely fish between 12 and 15" graced the net in about an hour of wonderful silence!

A case of mistaken identity...

"I know where you live!", that's what I was saying to myself as I drove towards Blount. No, I have not started to collect debts for big Vern and I have not taken up a post with the Royal Mail. I was just psyching myself up for stalking a big fish.

It was a fish I had seen a few weeks ago and unless it has already been served with a squeeze of lemon then it should still be there, having found itself one of those lies that is near impossible to present a fly to without snagging a tree/hooking the rushes/fly dragging like a skating sedge on speed etc.

I arrived to find the air alive with Mayfly, in fact the car was covered in them before I could get my wading boots on. My fishing time was limited to the cooking period of a pair of Mediterranean breasts.., with new potatoes and my seasonal favourite, asparagus.

As I walked down river the dancing May's filled the sky, the grass and even the fishing hut looked like it had a living skin. The spiders would be having a right hearty feast for the next few days but they would need it to repair their webs, damaged by volume.

The leviathan's lair was quiet. There were few flies on the water and no sign of rising fish. I would sneak into position and wait for him to show...not too long mind, I like my breasts soft and moist, don’t we all?

After maybe fifteen minutes a fish snatched at a passing fly. It was not the monster Trout but it meant that he would soon be out to play. Another five minutes passed and now there were three or four fish under the willow, all snatching at the Mayfly feast. Then, moving a large wake of water he came to the surface of his dark lair, to engulf his starter.

It was time. I got into the river and crawled on all fours, rod in teeth, to the spot where I knew I could present the fly. Although only shallow, I needed to stay low and the water was dangerously close to the top of my chesties as I knelt against the rushes.

He was now rising steadily.

I prepared the shooting line, I prepared to cast....the fly landing just at the top of the eddy, enough slack to hold it still whilst the current ate up the free line, "SLOSH!!", he struck, so did I

....a blinking Chub!!!!

Its the 1st of June and we all know what that means

Whey hey! Its June at last, Epemerella Danica, the Green Drake Mayfly, that time of year when I spend a lot of time watching fish feed, watching flies mate but not actually do a lot of fishing.

Why? Well I don’t find fish particularly hard to catch when they are gorging themselves on the old 'Danica' so I prefer to spend my time stalking bigger fish, fish that normally might not show or be seen.

Last year’s best fish came to a ‘May’; hopefully this year’s will be even bigger!!

What is it about Salmon?

You would think spending a week waving 15ft of graphite and a #10 line about with little to show for it, apart from sore shoulders, cracked skin on the fingers from line burn and an empty wallet, should be enough to put any sane person off?

It was a great weeks Salmon fishing, despite the lack of Salmon! They were in the river but we seemed to be about 10 miles behind them all week.

The first few days we fished Ardoe on the Dee in the morning and the South Esk for Sea Trout in the evening. As with so many Salmon trips, like so many anglers before us, the weather proved our downfall. It had rained very hard the Friday and Saturday before we got there. So we used the first three days as casting practice.
Fish that had been sitting in the Estuary all piled into the river at the same time and used a rising Dee as an opportunity to get as close to their spawning grounds as possible. They swan like fish possessed all the way to the middle and middle-upper beats, they were caught on the Monday and Tuesday from Lower Blackhall to Cairnton. We were about 20 miles too far east.

Mid-week and we switched to our second Dee booking, Lower Blackhall. Overnight rain on Tuesday scuppered us again and as we arrived on the Thursday to see the last of the Salmon swimming under the Banchory bridge and heading for tea with the Queen at Balmoral!

Soon the aches and pains from constant Spey casting were the main topic of conversation and AT's bad shoulder and my sore hands were the focus of our attention. Even the capture of a silver tourist was not enough to fire the hope that we were about to start catching Salmon.

The afternoon rain storms continued for the rest of the week and there was little prospect of a fish. We were neither seeing Salmon in the river nor were there fish being reported from the lower beats to give us hope that something could be heading our way.

However, no sooner were the rods loaded into the car on the Saturday evening than we were planning a September trip and the hunger for a Salmon was all consuming, again, until next time!

You ain't seen me, right?

The bank side cover does not really start growing around here until early to mid May. Keeping yourself hidden from those over-wintered or wild fish can be very challenging through March and April. So we have to ensure, more so than during the summer, that we wear the right clothes and use a higher degree of stealth. Two tips for not being spotted; make sure your head is below the cover behind you; wear dull, dark colours.

A recent trip to Sutton Brook was a good example. Both my fishing buddy and I were wearing camouflaged tops and spent most of the afternoon on our knees trying to avoid our silhouettes falling on the water. It was the only way we could get to see rising fish.

Although RE does not do a lot of river Trout fishing a sound coarse fishing background means he has excellent water craft. Fly selection was critical on this outing and the fish soon switched from sedge to olives and then to gnats. Although RE is a good fly tier his preferred method for filling the fly box is blatant pilfering and very soon some of my double badger and Klinks were re-homed!

It was good to see that the fish are doing well in Sutton Brook. One positive sign on this outing was a couple of small wild fish, much smaller than the stocked fish.

Somewhere over the Brownie..Part II

A few days later and I returned to the Haddon Estate for another go at these lovely fish. The three of us spent about half an hour trying to find breakfast in Bakewell before giving up and giving the Grouse and Claret our business. It was a good breakfast too although I should know better than to tuck into a big lump of black pudding and spent the rest of the day regretting/tasting it!

There is something guiltless about a cooked breakfast before a day’s fishing, as if the fresh air and day pursuing wild creatures makes all the cholesterol OK. I just wish my doctor could see it that way!

It was a friend’s Birthday gift and seeing as he has not done a lot of river fishing I suggested he start on the Put and Take section where it’s nice and open. Here he could get his casting eye in and there's a good chance of a fish or two to build confidence.

We arrived opposite the cottages and I pointed to a spot at the end of some reeds on the far bank, "A lump of a fish lives there Ian" and proceeded to peel of a length of line and cast to the spot I was referring to, the fly hit the water, "Just there" and it disappeared in a swirl that can only be made by a good fish! I'm a generous fishing buddy like that...

We watched a Stoat get chased off by a couple of Coots, they gave him a real scalding and us a good laugh. After mucking about for an hour there IP was now well into fishing a dry on moving water, had caught his first Wye Brownie and so we headed up stream.

We fished hard and all caught well. It was pleasing to see IP catching a few and having a jolly time of it.

The day was a tough one with the gusty wind, I knew I should have given the black pudding a miss but the fish were obliging, all three of us caught well through the mid-day feeding spell. They were coming to the Double Badger mostly but as the day wore on the flies got smaller and by the time we finished it was small olive immitations that were catching.

The hatches were of Grannom, although few and far between the fish still wanted them, and Spurwings, well that's what the book said

As the light started to fade I called it a day and took a steady stroll back to the car. IP joined me and we opened a bottle of warm beer whilst we waited for TJ to join us, and we waited...and we waited...

The Owls were just settling down for a nice kip when TJ decided to join us...we clicked our heels together and said "There's no place like........

May so far; 5 Brown Trout; 9 Rainbow Trout