Tracy&James | Thursday, 24 November 2016
Unfortunately Tracy’s birthday fishing trip to the River Dee last week had to be called off due to the conditions. Because of the forecast of heavy rain and strong winds we decided there was no point in driving up to the area on Wednesday night and staying over, so we instead elected to travel in the light on Thursday morning. When we arrived we made for one of the many bridges that span the river, the sort of bridges that fly-fishers find it almost impossible to drive over without getting out for a peer into the depths. The water was already the colour of my morning latte and substantially higher than normal. As Tracy and I stood and mulled over whether it was worth trying in various areas, where there might not be so much flow, a tree floated downstream! (Ok, perhaps not a full tree but definitely bigger than a large branch or a log). This made our minds up for us. As I’ve previously mentioned, the Dee isn’t the easiest wading in the world and trying to dodge substantial parts of the local scenery would only make it worse.
We kept an eye on the online gauges for the rest of the weekend but the levels were slow to fall. We did pass over the same bridge on the way back home on Sunday, the river was much clearer and fishable, however there was more rain on the way. The level peaked again on Monday, at a higher height than the previous Thursday, so I suspect it will be a good few days before it is fishable again. We’ll be back to try again in December.
With no fishing happening I had to make do with some casting practice over the weekend. The strong winds flattered the distances achieved, especially with the #7 and ST27 outfits. There’s definitely something missing from my distance casting at the moment, probably a decent haul due to my ongoing shoulder problem. If you’re interested in improving your casting and can get to East Sussex on Sunday then the BFCC will be attending the iFish show to provide instruction and a demo (from Mike H). This isn’t a competition event but I’m sure someone will have a tape handy if you fancy taking on the #5 weight, one-handed challenge! (I’ve just made this up being as I’ve been doing a lot of one-handed practice lately – 100ft is the target).
All the best, James.
