Changing Approaches

What a lovely day it was to be out fishing today, hardly any wind or breeze for a change and the sun was out, not too hot though just about right to be enjoyable while trudging about.
I was back on my small stream and had planned to change my approach through out the day, i wanted to do some dry fly fishing if the trout were rising but i also wanted to have another crack at the bigger resident trout.
I parked up in an area i could fish both up and down stream, each different section had the kind of water and features that also suited the different approaches. I set off with the lure rod fishing small ultralights, this was the stretch i had caught and seen some big trout in so this was my first approach.

I missed a couple of takes early on from decent trout before going through a long dry spell of activity until i reached an area that last time visited i saw a few big trout but had spooked them. This time i made a stealthy approach, i got down onto my hands and knees and literally crawled through the grass to get into position, I nestled myself behind a tree for cover so i could cast around it into the deepish pool. It was awkward but its interesting fishing in those kind of swims and the fun is the challenge of it. It took a couple of casts until i saw something following in behind the lure, it kept having a go at the lure but just mouthing it, It looked big and fat and at first i thought it was a well fed trout, until i saw another few fish following in behind it, i realised they were chub and big ones too, I sped up the lure as i was running out of room and shouldn't really be catching coarse species in rivers yet but as i did so the biggest chub sped up and hammered the lure, i had a short tussle before it came off.. good to see though, that fish was probably about 4lb and up until then I'd only seen chub up to maybe 1lb and a half.
I made the decision to head back to the car and switch to the fly rod, as i made my way back i fished a few pools again i had already fished, I lost a few fish off doing so and wondered if it was going to be one of those days! I was close to the car when finally one stuck and it was the best I'd had on so far, it was hooked awkwardly so didn't want to net it, so it took me a little longer to get in to hand as i didn't want to grab it as it was kicking and end up with hooks in my hand. It was a nice sized fish and looked to have a big mouth with slightly larger teeth than normal which suggested it was a more aggressive cock fish.

 

I carried on the short section to the car and enjoyed a spell of activity, there seemed to be a few fish about there and i landed a few more and lost a few off one of which looked a good one as it jumped.

 

Now back at the car i changed for my short #3 fly rod and decided to have a go with dries as a few fish I'd had on the lures had taken the lure literally off the surface. there wasn't any fish rising so i was basically prospecting and search for a fish that might take a dry. It took abit of water before i finally got one to rise which was then followed by a couple more, great fun and i think my first on dry for the year, the first fish was one of the smallest I'd had from this stream and still wasn't a bad size but it had amazing electric blue cheeks.

 

 

I wasn't really getting allot of action to the dries and it kind of felt like i was wasting water that I was wading through as i kept spotting the odd fish but they obviously wasn't interested in the dries. I'd by now reached an area that was slightly more open, even that was still a jungle though and challenging to cast. I made the decision to change approach again and switched over to a streamer so i could make use of the extra casting space. the #3 wasn't ideal but i could get the distance i needed with the tungsten head streamers i was using. The witch proved to be a good one as the trout really liked the streamers, in fact they were going nuts chasing them down in places which was fantastic to see. I picked up a few better sized fish and again lost a few more off.

 

 

I didn't have long left to fish but ended with a couple of highlights. I saw a couple of trout so went downstream of them and again crept into position, the only access point meant it was a long cast. As soon as the streamer hit the water and started to sink a fish hit it, i could see it was a good size for a trout, in fact it looked massive, then as it came closer I realised it was a pike of about 3lb. It actually gave a great fight on the #3 fly rod, i didn't even realise the pike got that far up into the flowing and very shallow water. It was out of season and not targeted so I didn't bother photographing it and got it back asap.

The final highlight of my day came in the form of a fish i had spotted from a high bank, i had to get up the bank at this particular spot as the water had reached a depth that would probably have gone over my shoulders, strange really when it mostly only reached a depth of waist height and even that was only the odd deeper pool. Anyway I was on top of the high bank looking down to the deeper water, upstream i saw that the deeper water was started off with a very small water fall running off from shallow water. As i crept closer i saw a trout swimming in position just at the head of the deep water, but it was quite high close to the surface, it looked brilliant seeing it like that in the deep water, i crept back abit and slid myself into a position where i could cast to it, I got the cast just right and as soon as the streamer hit the water in front of it the trout came to life and hit it, i then had a really enjoyable fight with the fish in the deeper water. It just felt really rewarding to have sighted the fish and cast to it which ended up with a fish in the net, a really enjoyable day of differing approaches...