Join Duncan Raynor on his first sea trout trip of the year
Walking the dog one evening I noticed it, maybe it was just a sense of something.
It was warm, the sun had just dipped below the horizon. It was time, I had a look at the calendar on my phone, I could make a session this week perhaps. It seemed early in the year but you never know.
Would the cold spring and lack of rain have affected them?
I checked through my gear, found the jacket I use and checked the contents of the chest pockets, fly boxes, nippers, forceps, tippet, head torch, spare torch were still there. I checked the batteries just to be sure.
The rods were packed in the back of the car. My old pair of waders are more aquasure that breathable material.
I worked the day shift and anticipation was building, as I got home after work. I made a flask of tea and got into the car.
The drive for me is about thirty minutes. The last part of the drive takes you down a narrow track, trees and hedges fighting to outgrow each other, I open the windows and the warm evening air flows into the car. The anticipation is building. The road winds its way through the woods, getting narrower and darker. I arrive at the car park I use, the last of the dog walkers is just putting his hound in the back of his car. I have the place to myself.
I quickly get kitted up, make sure things are in the right pockets as it is much easier to find things in the dark if everything is in its right place. I can barely contain myself as I walk down to the river, I decide to do a little recon. It is seldom wasted. A few of the pools have changed shape, the odd tree has washed away exposing fly grabbing roots.
The tree that overhangs one favourite spot is not in full leaf just yet, so that will help me to get a fly underneath it. I slowly plot out a mental map and picture of the pools I want to fish, the in points and the outs, which hazards to try and avoid, trees, bushes exposed roots.
The sun has disappeared now, I wander slowly to the pool where I have decided to start. I find it too has changed, there is now a log that has been exposed by the winter flood and makes a perfect spot to sit and wait.
This part of the evening is where the excitement builds further, I decide to rummage about in my fly boxes for a few flies to tie on a short is leader with a dropper is how I start. Some advice I got always rings in my ears, a real old timer gave it to me "black and silver boy". Two trusted patterns go on. I wait, wait until the growth on the far bank goes from green to grey, the bats come out, I watch a sedge as it quickly hatches and flutters into flight, only to be snatched out of the air by a bat.
Is it time? I wait a moment longer but can’t, I stand up and wade a few gentle paces into the current, the fast tongue of water is closer to my bank, it leaves the deep section behind it gently boiling past.
The tree I want to get my flies to swing under shows up briefly in the last few shafts of light. I take the flies off the keeper ring and strip some line off of the reel , I check the drag too.
It is dark now, the shadows and dark patches of water in the pool are calling, hiding their secrets.
A roll cast gets the flies into the pool. I start short and work my way out, hundreds of nerves are straining, my eyes adapting to the low light, my heart pounds in my ears.
What will tonight bring?