The weather turned on Monday evening – during the day the temp was up around the high twenties and then in the evening they plummeted down to just into the teens. It was windy too and it was not a warm wind, it was an evil cold wind that thoroughly stopped the action.
Well, if the truth be told it did not totally stop, the occasional trout sporadically rose and their were masses of spinners cruising around above our head so Atkins and I fished the Kelvin however very few of them came close to the water. Every now and again a trout would boil on the surface and I suspect it was an opportunistic trout taking advantage of a drowned specimen however they were not willing to look at our flies especially in the long slow sections where we were fishing.
Just before ten I felt as if something was happening, the spinners got closer to the water and the rises started to get just a little bit more frequent. You could at least tell that a trout was now rising a few times rather than just once – I managed to winkle one trout out from a across the river in a shady side pocket – a tricky cast across the river and then dealing with drag. I managed it by putting a bend in the middle of my line so that the fly drifted perfectly for just the foot I needed. I then had to time that drift with the frequency of the trout rising. I must have targeted that trout a dozen times and on one memorable occasion I watched the fly boil on the surface due to a displacement of water from underneath – the trout had classically refused the fly. On the next cast it took – it was small and I could not believe it had been so picky.
Still, it meant I did not blank.
Atkins left and I targeted three trout rising underneath a trailing tree branch within a rod length. I had to place my fly in the space of about a quarter of the size of a standard bath which also had a branch trailing in front of it. The trout were rising behind the trailing branch. That afternoon after I had got home from work I had managed to tie up around half a dozen flies all with yellow and white CDC to ensure I could see them in the dusk and dark. I reckon every one of them ended up in that tree. You see, even though I cast over those trout many-many times I still do not think I got a good enough drift for them to see my fly – it was landing just in front of their rise form.
It was totally and utterly maddening.
The darker it got the harder it got and the harder it got the more I wanted to catch one of thise trout, the harder and darker it got the bigger those trout got in my mind – I was at the same spot that I lost the rod bender the previous night so surely as these fish were in a particulary more safer lie then they would be bigger right?
Madness!
Eventually I looked up from my intense concentration and found it was fully dark and my legs were stiff due to the position I was standing – the trout had slowed there heavy feeding not to do with my casting but more to do with the fact they were nicely full up and satisfied with their feasting.
I have unfinished business!