All Ahead Full

With all the home improvements now over for this year and both Karen & myself working flat out at work and on our home for the last few months it was time for a rest, so two weeks ago we flew out to Rome & joined the ship Celebrity Reflection for a two week cruise around the Mediterranean, just what we both needed, some rest & recuperation.

Whilst away I managed as always to seek out one of the local fly fishing shops on one of our port days and what better way to cheer myself up than grab a bargain with a new fly tying vice amongst many other things.






Now back home after our holiday, totally relaxed and looking forward to the Grayling season over the winter.
As the blog followers will know, a fish Im very passionate about than any other and I look forward to the trout season ending so I can get on with the Grayling season, so today I decided to grab a few hours fishing before heading back to work tomorrow.
I headed out up the Dale in search of a last trout before calling it quits on them.

The first look at the water after a few weeks absence was like being reunited with an old friend, I was really looking forward to a few hours on the river and seeing what changes the last few weeks had brought. The first difference was the trees are starting to turn golden colours and you can tell that Autumn is setting in.

The river was low and slightly coloured so opting for a couple of nymphs to start with I eagerly tackled up and dropped in at the tail of the first pool I intended to fish through.

2nd run through I felt a small tug and lifted into the first fish of the day, a small Salmon Par.

A couple of more run through's and the line went static again and the 2nd species of the day was hooked, this time a Grayling had succumb to the dropper I had tied up on the new vice last night.






With nothing more coming from the pool I headed upstream searching the pools as I went, it wasnt long before I bumped into the club secretary and his guest who had decided to have a few hours on the river, after almost an hour of catching up with all the news and going's on and scanning the water for rising fish I left them at one on the long slow stretches chasing a couple of rising fish and headed upstream to the next pool.

It wasnt long until I was into another fish and the the third species of the day giving me the full house of game fish from the river.

Stopping for a bit to rest my knee and look to see if any fish were rising to the flies which were now hatching in the warm weather that was moving up the Dale, I seen a nice fish rising at the top of the pool so sat and watched for 20 minutes or so to see if if it was a continual riser or just being an opportunist and it was a fish which was rising continuously, so swapping over to a dry fly set up with a jingler pattern which always works well on this particular stretch I approached cautiously from below and cast a long line well above it.

The first pass of the fly and it took and ran upstream almost immediately, after some acrobatics and  a few more short runs I slipped the net under a lovely wild Brown Trout.

I thought this as a very apt time to finish this years Brown Trout season and end on a high with such a lovely fish on the dry fly.




Heading home I stopped off at one of my favourite places away from the river, which is a clump of blackthorn bushes which are now dripping with Sloe Berries, so it looks like I will be harvesting them next weekend as its always the end of September or thereabouts that they are ripe enough to pick and get them turned into one of my favourite tipples, sloe whisky.

Getting home I remembered that I still had a couple of litres still turning in the kilner jars since the end of April so in preparation for next week I strained them off and bottled them, You can tell I've been busy this year with other things as normally by this time I have none left and here I am with a couple of litres which will see me through dark nights sat tying Grayling flies, A nice thought to end on.