How they Take !!
Water conditions: slight stain with an extra 10 inches
Weather: overcast but mild and threatening rain.
"...my buddy said STRIKE,..."
The Lee had a cracking run of Grilse over the weekend, particularly on the upper beats where Saturday and Sunday saw 28 Grilse caught for 7 rods. While the fishing is excellent the Grilse were taking in a very strange manner. On the Saturday morning early (6am) I was down at one of my favourite runs - a narrowing in the river caused by two groynes creating a very fast smooth glide of about 4 feet in depth at the end of the groynes - this is a favourite lie for Grilse. Normally I stand well up above the groyne on the right bank and casts down and across to about half way down the groyne on the left bank, with a mend to give the fly some time to get down before it sweeps across the lie at the end of the groyne. On this occasion a buddy was on the far bank standing still and quietly at the end of the groyne I was casting to - he could see several Grilse on the lie. On my first cast the fly swept across the lie a fish promptly cam up took the fly, closed his mouth and didn't move - I felt nothing on the line after a couple of seconds the fly was spat out and the fish returned to his lie. Had my friend not been there I would have had no idea that this was going on. Second cast and another fish came up took the fly - put the brakes on and just hung there in the water - again I felt nothing - my buddy said STRIKE, I promptly lifted the rod and the fish was on !! quickly played a returned - this fish was well hooked too. He had been shrimp fishing and was saying they had been taking strange for the last few days- just barely touching the shrimp a quick registration on the float and gone. I started wondering how many times the fish were doing this with my fly and I knew nothing of it. I decided to start figure of eight-ing the fly back to me throughout the cast - the result - six Grilse for the remainder of the day - when retrieving the fly I would just feel a slight weight on the line at which time I would lift the rod and the fish was well hooked - lesson learned. Tightlines
in Fishing reports by kieran the 2009/07/02 at 21:30:07
