It had been a while since Pete Tyjas caught up with friend Lee Evans so they arranged to meet up for an early season get together
“If I bend over can you apply the glue?” Lee asked. We were on the river and Lee had slid down the bank and a bramble had punctured his waders.
I scanned the area just in case anyone was watching, there were sheep but they didn’t appear interested.
The river was still up and pushing according to Lee. He knows this sort of thing. He lives on the river and knows the very pulse of what is happening down to the temperature readings that he takes each day.
He’d cooked me a full Welsh breakfast and we’d made the short walk to his home water. I was still amazed that I hadn’t noticed that his beautiful lurcher had only three legs. I used to pride myself on spotting these sorts of things but it was testament to how well she had coped after a nasty accident.
Lee talked me through every pool, how it fishes at a particular height and the best place to enter and exit a pool. Having seen the water he was a little nervous of the height and as any good host would feel, he just wanted it to be perfect for me.
I did my best to let him know I wasn’t bothered; I genuinely wasn’t. The sun was shining, the river looked really inviting and I was pleased to see Lee again. I last met up with him for a piece I’d written way back in Issue 17 of ESF.
The nice thing about where we were fishing was that it was pretty much private so it meant we could take a bunch of rods with us so we could try different methods dependent on where we were fishing. We both had a nymph rod, dry fly rod and a streamer/salmon rod just in case.
It was still early and we spent some time scanning the water looking for rising fish. The river is a good size, much bigger than where I fish in Devon and Lee said prospecting the water with a dry would take too much time and effort and so waiting for a consistent riser is a better plan. We saw a oncer rise but that was it and so we headed downstream to some faster water where we planned to fish some nymphs while we waited for things to warm up.
I was pleased that when we got to the bottom of the beat that the three strung- up rods I was carrying hadn’t got tangled. This was despite the fact I had a heavy bead head on the dropper that was swinging freely.
I take these little omens as positives ones.
The bottom of the beat was, of course, exactly as Lee had explained it. There was a pool at the bottom that he’d told me holds salmon so I opted to try while he fished the head of the pool for trout. I heard a call from Lee and he’d briefly had a small trout on that had come off and just a few minutes later the same had happened again.
Walking into the water I could see what Lee had meant about the pace of the water. The bottom was rocky too and we’d both laughed a little when he told me a story of a mutual friend who’d stepped into the pool tripped on a small rock and taken a dunking. I mentioned that perhaps he was like a friend of mine who I fished with one time who stumbled on the edge of the river and entered it sliding down head first into the water. At the time I thought he was like the Pope who liked to kiss the tarmac after exiting an aeroplane. I wasn’t sure if it was a similar ritual or not.
Apart from the lost fish, that was it from the pool and so we decided to walk upstream to fish some similar water. The plan worked, while I was untangling my stray dropper, I wasn’t as lucky this time, Lee had hooked into a fish. I watched as he played and netted it and I took a few pictures. It was at this stage that I realised that I had fished a portion of this beat from the other side a few years back. I’d had an eventful and enjoyable morning catching and releasing some nice trout.
I’d remembered the guy but not his name and described him and Lee confirmed it. He even appeared on the other side later in the day and as Lee shouted across a conversation about fishing and mentioned me. The guy even remembered me or said he did, I don’t know if he was just being polite.
I worked up toward the head of the pool. The water was thigh deep and strong. I’d switched my nymphs about a bit to get them down and quickly caught a couple of small, for this river, nine inch trout. I was really pleased but to be honest my focus was on staying dry. After the stories we’d told I didn’t want to meet up with him soaking wet. The problem was that a secondary strong flow was just off the bank cutting of any exit. It didn’t matter that much I just fished my way up and got out a little farther upstream.
I met Lee who been looking for rising fish and despite seeing the odd one rise against the far bank that had been about it. Time had flown and so we sat and ate a really good pork pie and drank ginger beer too.
We both saw the rise. The fish rose again and then another one just behind it. There was a fallen tree against the far bank that just broke the speed of the flow a little and created a neat foam line about 20 feet long. This was what we’d been waiting for.
Lee headed out to try and get to intercept the grannom feeding fish from downstream but was beaten back by the strength of the flow and the depth of water too. I think we both clicked at the same time that if he made a downstream presentation with plenty of slack he’d be in business. He did and the fish was on. There are times these fish can be either missed or just pricked but the secret is to wait just a little longer when the fish has taken and then set.
It was my turn. Earlier Lee had said that fish will rise in a spot between two trees on our bank and on cue one started. I waited for another rise and covered the fish but nothing happened. The fish rose but farther upstream. I waited again and again the rise was just slightly farther again. I was kneeling down and on the bank as the fish was only a couple of feet away from it. I cast my grannom emerger just a few feet upstream of the last rise. The fish took straight away and I was careful not to strike too quickly. I’d asked Lee how quickly they took and he’d said there was plenty of time. This is in stark contrast to the fish at home.
I’d moved a little farther upstream to where Lee had said it was a good spot to prospect with a duo rig while he’d seen a riser downstream that was again against the far bank in water that looked ominously deep.
I continued to fish from the bank and tied on a Holy Grail nymph that I hung below a large dry. To me, it had a real grannom pupa look to it. I felt a mildly smug feeling when the dry dipped and the line came to life. Lee had seen my rod bucking and shouted encouragement and then shouted out “double hook up” as he lifted into a fish too.
The afternoon was warm, the sort that you really enjoy in April despite it not being the best fishing conditions.
We finished by pulling some streamers in a shaded deeper section. I think my fly was just too big but Lee had a smaller, home-tied pattern that one fished took and came unstuck yet a few casts later a nice fish was hooked. He asked me to net the fish which after some serious thrashing about I managed to do. It was the perfect way to end things and a day I will remember for a long time to come.