They always look bigger in real life.

I had a pounding headache all day at work however had based myself in Clydebank so that I could shoot down to the river nice and quick. The temp was hovering over 20 degrees and the sky was overcast, I could tell a change was on the way.

I keep my rod set up in the car so that I save a couple of minutes when I get to the river. It also means that if I have a spare 10mins I can stop at my wee burn, catch a few trout, and by on my way again with my fix satisfied.

The river had a tinge of color to it and was up several inches. It was high enough that the riffles were bigger and longer and just looked in excellent condition. The place was alive with buzzing insects and when I looked downstream I spotted several trout rising.

From the photo above you would think that this was in fact in the countryside when instead the sounds of cars honking their horns, buses moving and people shouting from a walkway just above me competed with the sounds of birds and flowing water. There are some high flats a few hundred metres away.

With hindsight I should have waded slowly down to the rising trout however I stuck to the riffle and caught nowt. I moved up the river slowly eventually picking up trout on both my size 12 Klink and my PTN dragging under it.

I used to always say that you can tell a proper Kelvin trout as quite frankly it looks like it has seen a bit of action however over the last few years their condition has improved and they look bonny.

Once I had finished at that stretch I headed up the road to a different section of river.

Not sure why this was happening however several trout that I caught were false hooked on their body – it must have been the way they were taking the fly.

I have started carrying my net again, I had stopped for a while their as I was just not using it however after nearly losing some big trout and paranoid about attempting to grab a trout and damaging it I decided to carry it again. It is a big net so the size of this lunker does not look that impressive, I was trying to get a classic photo in the hand when it wiggled back into the water.

There is something about catching trout after some hot weather, the river is full of oxygen and the trout pull like crazy – my wee four weight was bent over a few times and annoyingly on a couple of occasions my reel fell off while this was going on.

I guess I could have stayed out a lot longer however my headache had not subsided so I headed back to the motor and a leisurely drive back home.