A good way to recover after being ill? Part 1

It is always annoying when you have planned something and then something else comes along at the last minute to bugger everything up. I told you I pulled out of my weekend away as I was ill. Several of my fishing pals had planned to travel up to Pitlochery together and fish the Tummel and possibly another couple of rivers like the Tay or the River Lyon- all in all we had big plans. Unfortunately pulled out the day before after what started as a tickly sore throat turned into a raging fever with lots of mucous involved…..yuck. Consequently the whole thing was cancelled. I was pretty annoyed, I mean by the Friday I was feeling better but no way recovered for 2 nights under canvas with three days hard fishing. Mike I later learned had done a bolt to fish some remote hill loch somewhere so that left Emmanuelle and Alex.
So Saturday I was feeling well enough to go for a little evening session on my other favourite river. We left at around 3pm whichmeant we would have a good quantity of time when we got there before any quality action started. Emmanuelle and Alex immediately headed down stream while I stayed put to sit and relax. I did not want to wear myself out too quickly.

I must admit, just lying there in the shade, watching the river flow by was absolutely lovely, I think it really made me appreciate the pace that I should be going at a lot more. Ok- I know I was laying there doing nothing but when I did finally get my arse in gear I tried to just take my time going from little pool to little pool- not rushing at all which I think I have a tendency to do sometimes. This section of river is hard to fish and it is easy to get in a tangle or spook every trout in a pool. So taking your time is always the best option anyway, I am stunned it took illness to remind me of that.

There are so many bushes that eventually you must tie on new flies and tippets as well…

I did not catch many trout, I think maybe around 3 maybe but one fish I was not expecting to see was a Grayling. It was my first ever Grayling and was very happy to catch one finally. And then just like a bus when you wait ages for one another one came along on the next cast.

Later on as the sun went down we walked up past where all the pools are to a stretch of flat water hoping the trout were going to take sedges. Some did and some did not. It was very odd, I just could not coax some active feeders into taking anything at all but hey that’s life.

Our end of days fishing was full of calamities. For starters I took a tumble whilst going down a hill, banging my leg and hurting my wrist. This left me thoroughly miserable on the remainder of the walk back. At this point we discovered that a new electric fence had been erected across our path; or rather Alex discovered it as he tried to get his leg over it only to be shocked. Emmanuelle and I decided to try and find another way whilst agile Alex managed to jump over the fence, he did have an incentive though as he had already dropped his rod on he other side when he got his shock.
We planned another attack on Sunday- this time we would come back prepared with mini torches.

Watch this space.