Peter Anderson is back with a cracking article on fishing the Durham Derwent and also the Yorkshire Derwent so we're getting two rivers for the price of one this month!
There are four River Derwents in England: Yorkshire, Durham, Derbyshire and Cumbrian. I’ve fished the first two, so halfway to getting a set!
The Yorkshire Derwent and I go back a long way. It’s a strange river, rising about 4 miles from the North Sea near Scarborough but prevented from reaching the sea by a glacial moraine. It turns south then veers west to eventually join the Yorkshire Ouse 80 or so miles later....it takes the scenic route. It’s not a river in a hurry to reach the sea. Now I’m a Scarborough boy so I did a lot of my early fishing on this river. I was a bait fisherman at the time and this little stream produced some very good fish for me: a 2lb roach, a 2lb 12oz grayling and a 3lb 14oz brown trout which took a lump of cheese when I was ledgering for chub. I was also there when a friend of mine landed a 13lb pike after a 90 minute fight from a stretch of river no more than 10 feet wide. We were 13 years old at the time and thought this was a monster! So the Yorkshire Derwent and I have history, but as boys we never fished the upper reaches – they were fly only and controlled by the Derwent Anglers Club which was definitely not for the likes of us! I moved away 30 odd years ago and hadn’t fished the river since.
Then I started fly fishing. The Derwent Anglers Club water is private and no day tickets are issued, but there is a wonderful thing called the Wild Trout Trust and they have an annual auction... and a couple of years ago a guided day on their waters was one of the lots. Obviously this was not an opportunity to miss. I placed my bid determined to win and managed to do so with the help of a last minute increase in the bid. So it was with high anticipation that I met my host for the day, Dave Southall. Now Dave is rather good at this fishing lark. This is a tiny river fished with a 7 foot rod. OK so far. The complications were (i) him telling me that I really needed at least 25 feet of leader/tippet because these were wild, spooky fish and (ii) I should fish dry only in sizes 24 or 26. Dave uses these tactics and regards a day when he catches fewer than 50 fish as a let down. I’m not the best dry fly fisherman now, I was even worse then. I explained to Dave that my casting skills were perhaps not up to this. I could roll cast after a fashion but 25 feet of nylon between the fly line and the fly wouldn’t result in us catching fish. It would result in me catching plenty of trees through. And I wouldn’t be able to see a size 24 fly. So we compromised, 15 feet of nylon (still a lot I thought, teamed with 7 foot rod) and a size 18 fly, one of Dave’s beautiful olive patterns.
The Gods were kind. On the third cast a fish rose to my fly and to my astonishment I connected. This is still quite unusual, connecting with the rise I mean. It usually takes a while for the fact that a fish has taken the fly to register with me and by the time I lift the rod, the fish is long gone. We then spent a glorious day walking for miles, catching plenty of fish (22 of them, I was delighted, Dave was very kind about it and didn’t mention how many he would have probably caught) and my casting got a lot better. Mind you it never reached Southall standard. He demonstrated a snap roll and all I registered was the rod waving around, the line snaking round in the air and a perfectly executed cast, I still haven’t a clue how he did it.
So a day on the Upper Derwent is well worth seeking out. Beware though, it is a very small stream with lots of feisty wild trout... but they are not big. Oh, and they stock rainbows lower down the river so if you’re really unlucky you might connect with one of them.
The Durham Derwent is a lot different. To start with, day tickets are freely available, see the excellent website at http://www.derwentangling.co.uk. There is a lot of river to go at, they have 15 miles! It is also very different in nature to its Yorkshire cousin. The Yorkshire Derwent is pretty benign, it winds through pasture even in its upper reaches. It has gentle flows and easy wading. The Durham Derwent, whilst not malign, is certainly unruly, especially at its upstream end where it flows through a gorge. I had the pleasure of fishing this beat with Ian Colbourne, the secretary of the Derwent Angling Association and a master of fishing the river – he once had 1000 trout from it in a season which is a prodigious effort.
Our day started in heavy rain and a long walk through woodland to the bottom of the gorge. We then worked our way upstream, leapfrogging each other from pool to pool. This was a river of boulders, rough water and inviting pockets. Ian’s advice was to fish the duo and very successful it turned out to be. We caught fish steadily, the fish nor caring whether we were in the rain (usually) or hot sunshine (sometimes!).
They were beautiful wild fish too. Not big but a delight to catch, similar to the Yorkshire fish in fact, though I’m pretty sure there will be some sizeable fish lurking in there. It is physically hard work and a wading staff is very useful too. Then at the end a stiff climb through the woodland to find a pub for a well earned drink. A superb river, well worth seeking out.
It’s time now to start thinking about tackling the other two Derwents!
Read more of Peter's fishing and walking exploits via his excellent blog .
