A lure and fly day..

Yesterday saw me mixing it up with lures and flies again looking for a multi species day.

 I started on a canal with bother the ultralight lure gear and a fly rod to cover any bait fish i might find. It started off well picking up lots of small perch, I thought about just enjoying a bag up day and seeing what kind of tally I could get too. The trouble was i kept seeing fish rising and switching between the fly rod and lure gear. This started to get abit frustrating if I'm honest.
It was nice to mix it up though and pick up a few roach on the dry fly to add to the perch on kopyto's

 

A bit later on I managed a bleak, they are quite sizable bleak at this venue and Ive had some really big ones in the past.... big for bleak anyway! there actually a nice little fish and take flies really well, last year as i was walking the towpath i could spot them swimming and rising in front of me and put a dry fly about 2 foot in front of the direction they were swimming, it was great to watch when they responded and came up for the well placed fly.

 

I'd started fishing after work at about 1:30 and knew i still had into the evening to fish, so had planned to move on from my first venue at some point. My phone went and it was the Mr's saying she was going out so if i wanted, i could stop out as long as i wanted. As if i needed permission! With a couple of drinks and a pile of crackers with me to keep me going I headed off for a small river to try and add some different species to my tally. I was thinking about starting on small cranks for the trout, chub and pike, then in the evening i would switch to dry fly and enjoy some proper trout fishing.

 

Its amazing sometimes how venues change so much in so little time, last time i was here, which would have been a matter of weeks not months, there was none of this weed growth. Some sections were really thick with it.

 

I had some good days on this stream in late spring and its slowly got quieter and quieter, I was primarily catching trout but did see quite a few chub. My only thoughts are that the trout were more hungry and aggressive earlier in the year, feeding up after the winter. It could be that they have just moved up river as i didn't see a great deal either, the thing with wading small streams is that even if your not catching your getting a sense of what is about as your right there in the water with the fish. The stream was crystal clear today and really low which also didn't help. As it turned out i fished quite allot of the river before i finally got a fish, a smaller one than i am used to here but they are all welcome and each one is individually marked and has its own character.

 

After missing a few bigger fish when they just snapped at my bean lures and then were never seen again, I made the choice to move further upstream to see if there was more fishing located there. By now it was getting into the evening and the whole place took on a totally different atmosphere in the bright lowering sunlight. In places it was nearly pitch black under the tree canopy.

 

As it turned out my last fish of the session was to be my biggest, still only average for the venue but after a lot of disappointing hours wading I was pleased with that fish. A shame i didn't get some of the big fish i saw along with a pike that i landed but dropped back in while getting my camera out.