March man flu fly fishing...

We are at the end of March and things should be improving weather wise but it ain't! The biting wind had died down today and it was actually nice and sunny at times but still very cold. even the snow wasn't melting much. I'd developed Man flu over the last few days and had to try really hard at home to make an effort washing up etc so it didn't look bad when i said i was still going fishing to the mrs! Nothing gets in the way of fishing, not even illness.

Today was to be my first fly fish for brown trout of the trout season and I'd arranged to meet up with a fishing mate of mine, Steve. I drove over to his neck of the woods and was surprised at how much snow had fallen that way on, still over a foot or more in places.
We jumped in the river and set about casting nymphs set up on duo. The water was extremely cold with the very slow snow melt and it wasn't until we started to get into a few fish that we realised this, even after standing in the water for some time we didn't really feel it. freezing cold water on the hands is another thing though, but.... it meant we was catching fish. All though it was now closed season for grayling we seemed to be finding them and not seeing any trout.
It took awhile to find my first trout amongst the little pockets of grayling here and there but eventually I found one and quite a decent sized one for the small river too. It was quite thin so had not been finding much to eat and in summer condition would have been a good pound.

 

We didn't do as well as we would have hoped but its not surprising with the water temperature, we did manage a few more brownies between us but most of the days action came from the oos grayling.

I really enjoyed the day and was just what i needed after the start of the year was mainly comprised of blanks and one fish sessions so it was nice to get amongst a few fish. My man flu also did better for a bit of fresh air, although now back at home i can 'pretend' again and get ligged out on the sofa with a box of tissues and a little bell....