Tracy&James | Thursday, 31 August 2017
Last weekend James and I went back to North Wales to spend time with our family and we managed to find time to fish the River Dee. The weather was perfect, the fish were rising and we had the particular beat we chose completely to ourselves. From the moment we arrived, we saw rises and James quickly waded in and started catching grayling using a single dry fly – the klinkhammer was our fly of choice and it worked well. I waded in too, and caught some lovely grayling and a small brown trout. Casting our #3 outfits at rising fish was much more fun than nymphing (mainly because my arm is still hurting from last time I ‘high-sticked’ all day!).
We slowly waded the beat, though after about an hour I had to retreat to the bank to warm up and add a layer of clothing as, even though the weather was mild, the water was still quite cold. We both had plenty of takes to the dry fly, missing many but overall caught tens of fish, mostly small, but we both caught a couple of decent size grayling each. Though I need practice in juggling my rod after netting a fish in deep water so I can use two hands on the fish; balancing the rod on my shoulder was a little precarious!
As I still have a slight injury with my right arm, I took quite a few breaks to rest and decided to play with my camera, taking photos of James fishing using various settings, including grainy B&W, watercolour and ‘old fashioned’. Then started using the macro on insects and flowers – I still have lots to learn with the settings on the camera, but it was fun playing around with it.
James caught a nice sized brown and showed me some tactics to cast at fish that were rising down-stream from me; ‘a down-stream pile cast’. He found it very effective although he probably missed as many fish as he caught.
We finished the day as the temperature dropped and the rises started to fade. James finally left the river and admitted that he was so cold that his teeth were ‘chattering’ and he couldn’t feel his knees. This may have been partly down to the fact that he’d decided to wade in shorts (under his waders) as it’s supposed to be ‘Summer’. He took ages to ‘thaw’ out with the heater on high in the car.
We spent the rest of the weekend eating and drinking too much with our family and watched our 15-year old nephew play a great game of rugby (typical welsh activity). James also got some distance casting in and had a PB with his #5 outfit.
Next weekend we’ll probably be doing some more casting and drinking – but in Essex this time.
Whatever you are doing, have a great time,
Tracy
