Peter Anderson is back this month sharing another great write up from one of his fly fishing adventures
We’ve all been there, on holiday, rods in the boot hoping for a day on the river. But if it’s a spate river it can go all wrong, and you can’t pop back next week! So it was for me in the Eden Valley during a wet September. I’d arranged to have half a day with Steven Dawson on the Eden, but it rained....and rained. I had a look the day before and the river was angry, a bit like the Zambezi I thought. Swollen, muddy, carry bits of tree, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a hippo float past. We called off the Eden, but I went to have a look at Crowdundle Beck. This is available on the Eden Passport scheme and is a small, overgrown stream not far from Penrith. It looked pretty angry too! The next morning though it looked better, upset rather than angry, not fishable but giving me some hope of wetting a line before I left the area the following day. We went for a long walk, saw a red squirrel and a fox, had a leisurely lunch, then popped back in the afternoon and by then it was no longer even upset, just mildly irritated. Certainly fishable. So I did.
The Eden Rivers Trust is one of those wonderful organisations which make available interesting fishing for very little money. Many will be familiar with the system, buy tokens and use them as payment to fish, usually posting them in a box at the beat but in the case of the Eden scheme the vouchers are sent back to them, there are no beat boxes. Their website is a bit tongue in cheek. For Crowdundle it warned: “Don’t consider it unless out can put out a line in the garden shed”; “There are fish there, we’ve seen some” and “It flows through the grounds of Acorn Banks, a National Trust property. Be careful not to hook a visitor”. It is actually pretty good, you don’t need to cast a long line, there are plenty of fish and you won’t be troubled at all by visitors, the fence and some pretty thick undergrowth take care of that.
This is a small stream, 10 feet wide on average, and as such I think it should be one beat. As it is, the bottom end is shared between two beats, beat 1 on the right bank and beat 14 on the left. That is a recipe for trouble, two anglers can’t fish it from opposite banks and you need to cross from side to side to cover it properly. I used vouchers for both beats so that I could fish both banks, it cost me £10 rather than £5, but this does need to be sorted out. Surely some form of revenue sharing can be agreed between the landowners.
So, how to tackle it? There is a lot of tree cover, long casting isn’t an option. I used a 7’6” 3 weight rod, 18” of 3lb stroft attached to the fly line and a klinkhammer tied on a short dropper. 18” from that I tied a nymph. It seems to me that the choice of fly isn’t critical. The stream flows quickly and the fish need to grab a meal when they can, this is not chalkstream fishing! The nymph needs to get down quickly so a tungsten bead headed PTN or hare’s ear in sizes 14-18 will be fine. Chest waders are needed and I used a wading staff. Crowdundle is generally 1-2 feet deep with holes up to 5 feet, but it is rocky and can be difficult underfoot so I think that the staff is useful.
I got in the river at the downstream limit. I sat on the bank, got a firm foothold on the river bed then stood up. This avoids standing on a slippery stone and falling in (I speak from experience here), it also makes for a quieter entry. I searched out the water on the edge of the main flow. This is fishing at very short range, flicking the flies forward and keeping the fly line off the water to avoid drag. Drifts were rarely more than 4 feet or so. And after 3 casts I fluked a tiny grayling! It grabbed the nymph as I lifted off, as they so often do. This did wonders for my confidence. There were fish in there and my tactics were working.
On it went, flick upstream, short drift, step forward, repeat. No, let’s be honest, flick upstream, hook into a trailing branch, swear, unhook and untangle, try again. I kept moving covering plenty of water, the klink regularly slipped under and fish came, not big but all wild and great fun. Interestingly, nothing came up for the dry, everything was caught on the nymph. Then I came to a very deep, fast pool quite out of character with the rest of the river, but mouth-wateringly tempting. Not to be fished with the duo though, the speed of the water would push the klink along quickly and would pull the nymph up and prevent it from getting to the required depth. Off with the duo and on with a heavy nymph with a lead underbody and a tungsten bead, this would certainly get down to where the fish would be. I dropped this into the fast water and tracked the drift with the rod tip, Czech nymph style. Within a couple of seconds the line tightened and after a heart stopping tussle a 1lb plus wild brownie was in the net. To say I was pleased would be an understatement! Back it went safely.
I called it a day, couple of hours of great fun and a wonderful way to end. For somebody like me that fishes in different parts of the country, the passport schemes are a godsend. Try them!
NOTES
Eden Rivers Trust – www.gowild.edenriverstrust.org
I fished Crowdundle Beck – beats 1 & 14, 2 vouchers each
Copperhead nymph
Hook TMC 5262
3mm copper tungsten bead
Lead underbody
Mix of squirrel and hare’s ear dubbing to form a body
Fine copper wire open rib
Or they can be bought from Stuart Minnikin of Yorkshire Dales Fly Fishing, www.yorkshire-dales-flyfishing.com
Read more from Peter HERE