Join Nick Thomas for a day on the river
Trout season on my home water opens on the 3rd of March and I was out on the river early. Did I catch trout? No. Plenty of grayling, but not a single spotted fish came my way. It was the same on subsequent visits, every fish that took one of my nymphs was silver with a big coloured dorsal. The first couple of weeks of March were plagued by bands of heavy showers sweeping in from the west. No sooner did the river settle and become fishable, it would be on the rise again. Fishable days seemed to coincide with low temperatures and a strong easterly wind, not really what I wanted for the beginning of the trout season after a cold winter of grayling fishing.
The last day of March dawned rather damp and overcast, but a bright and clear spring day was optimistically forecast. The river level was up after heavy rain in the Brecon Beacons over the past couple of days, but had been dropping on the gauge overnight. By the time I arrived at the river the sun was beginning to break through the clouds and there was a palpable feeling of warmth in the air. With my favourite fishing hat on instead of the thick wool beanie I’d been wearing through the cold of winter, I was feeling good as I sat on a log by the river to tackle up. There was still a bit of colour in the water, but not enough to dent my enthusiasm.
Strolling along the bank it was astonishing how much everything had grown in the few days since I had walked the path previously. Trees that had only been in bud now had almost fully opened leaves and were glowing in different shades of fresh saturated greens and yellows in the spring sunshine. The wild garlic was beginning to cover the ground under the beech trees and I would catch their savoury smell occasionally as I bruised a leaf under my wading boots. Wood anemones lined the path along the edge of the river with their flowers turned to catch the warmth of the sun as the last of the clouds faded away.
My dry fly box was freshly stocked with some of my favourite spring patterns. Nothing fancy, just some simple LDO/March Brown imitations with a mix of synthetic fibres and deer hair in the wings over organza bodies in a range of colours. Tied on jig hooks so I could use them in a duo rig or, if there was a decent hatch or some rising fish, I could cut off the nymph and fish the dry fly alone. It was great to be anticipating a variety of different approaches to take after fishing exclusively with heavy nymphs through the winter.
There were no fish rising yet so I set up to fish a duo. I was using a new adjustable sliding rig that I’ve been working with for a while. One of the fresh dry flies went on the end of my leader and a black Radyr nymph with a 2.5mm tungsten bead completed the duo. Once I’d degreased the tippet and applied a smear of Gink to the dry fly wing I was ready to fish. I clipped the point fly into the keeper ring and clambered down the bank to the river full of anticipation.
With the river dropping but still running high, I figured that many of the fish would have shifted from their usual holding spots in the main current towards the edges and tails of the runs of fast water. I crossed the exposed pebble bank at the edge of the first pool and slowly waded along the edge of the current towards the spot I had picked to start fishing.
After a couple of casts the dry fly slipped under and the leader, jabbed away across the current. A small grayling was the taker. A very small grayling; I’ve tied larger saltwater baitfish flies. It was a perfectly formed miniature fish and a good indication of a healthy breeding stock in the river, but it wasn’t the fish I was looking for. A couple of drifts later the dry paused its drift and I lifted into another fish. A grayling again however, larger though by the pull and the flash of silvery grey visible in the brown tinted water. A couple of twists and turns later it was off.
I moved up the pool a few feet and it wasn't long before another grayling was spinning in the current; this one came off too. As did the next one. Sometimes it just happens with vigorous grayling in a strong current, with several fish in a row managing to twist and spiral their way off the hook. I reeled in and checked the nymph hook against the back of my thumbnail anyway. It didn't feel right. I dug around in my pack and brought out my pound shop reading glasses. These are essential for any close work these days for me I’m afraid. I can still tie a saltwater fly to heavy tippet with the naked eye, but anything smaller needs some 3x optical assistance. I wouldn’t sit down and read a book with them; that would be asking for a stonking headache. But I always have several of the strongest ones I can find scattered amongst my fly fishing waistcoat and sling packs. When they get too scratched, or are dropped and trodden on, they go in the recycling bin and I dig out a new pair. Recently I found some with tiny LED lights and batteries built into the frames, which I think may prove very useful for late evening fishing in the summer.
The point of the jig hook was turned outwards, a tiny imperfection from a collision with a rock, but enough to prevent a secure hook hold. A few strokes of industrial diamonds on the hook sharpener restored the point. The next grayling stayed on all the way to the net, and a very nice looking fish it was too. But still not what I was after. Now I know they can't be aware when they are out of season and should ignore my nymphs and let the trout have a go, any more than the trout know that it's trout season and it's OK for them to take their turn. However, it can get a tad frustrating when it seems that there are ten times more grayling in the river than trout and if you are fishing blind in the absence of a hatch and visible rising fish, you are destined for a day governed by statistics rather than your best laid plans.
A pair of dippers were working up and down along the pebbles at the water’s edge looking for insect larvae and pausing on the larger stones to bob up and down in their eponymous dance. A group of mallards squabbled among themselves sorting out pairings for the nesting season under an overhanging tree like a crowd of noisy teenagers; just like Cardiff on a Friday night. I decided I’d move downstream and find a quieter spot.
I walked through the cricket club where the groundsman was making the first grass cut of the season, valiantly riding the mower around in shorts and a t-shirt. The shirt was obviously a grudging concession to the early season; for most of the year he drives the mower in shorts alone, and I think he’d do it naked if he thought he would get away with it. By the end of the summer he’s the colour of oiled teak and apparently just as immune to sun damage.
I re-joined the river at the cricket pitch boundary fence and followed the twisting path under the oak, beech and sycamore trees overhanging the river. This section of the river holds some nice fish when the conditions are right, but the water was too high today for the long wade across the current from the far bank which is required to reach them. I carried on downstream, stopping now and then to check out the river and see if any fish were rising yet. All was quiet on the surface so I cut across the field to the next bit of fishable water and threaded my way under the trees and through the brambles, ferns and the brittle remains of last year’s knotweed to the edge of the next pool.
The current was running strongly close in to the bank making the wading tricky over the rounded boulders but there was a flat seam behind a large rock which looked like it might just have a trout in residence. My first cast was a little short, inhibited as I was by the steep bank and dense vegetation behind me. I pulled out a couple more feet of line and dropped the duo just above the rock and held the rod tip high to keep most of the fly line off the water. The dry fly accelerated downstream as it met the faster flow around the rock and then stopped dead. Thinking the nymph had got snagged I lifted the rod to prepare to flick it free. Not a snag, a fish, which zipped off downstream in short order. This one wasn’t twisting and turning in the current like a grayling; could it be the first long awaited trout? It was indeed, and after a spirited tussle it slid over the rim of the net to be admired in the spring sunshine. My trout season was underway.
I made a few more casts into the same seam, but I reckoned I was pushing my luck to get another fish from such a small area. I reeled in and threaded my way back through the slippery rocks to the bank and followed the faint path through the tangled vegetation to the next pool. Early spring bees were making the most of the pollen on the freshly emerged willow catkins above my head as I sat down for a cup of coffee. I had discovered earlier in the morning that my waders had sprung a slow leak and my left foot was now squelching about inside my wading boot and getting cold. I’d promised my wife I would be home by lunchtime to do a little light gardening in the afternoon. You know the kind of thing; digging a two-foot-deep runner-bean trench, cutting the hedge and forking drainage holes in the lawn. Time was getting on, so I packed away the coffee flask, slung my pack over my shoulder and waded back out for a last half-hour’s fishing. I reckoned I could put up with a soggy frozen foot for that long.
My first two casts were enthusiastically snaffled by grayling who still hadn’t cottoned on to the fact that they were supposed to leave me alone. I moved downstream a few yards to a run of faster riffly water on the basis that if the grayling were holding in the deeper slower water, maybe there would be some trout in the faster stuff. I swapped the nymph for a lighter version of the same pattern and shortened the distance from the dry fly to fish this shallower water.
I covered the water searching out the likely holding spots, gradually extending the line between casts, all to no avail. Just when I was at the point of giving up for the day and turning for home, a longer cast towards the far side of the river drifted behind a large boulder and the dry fly disappeared in a swirl of foam. Nothing was required on my part to hook the fish as it darted out into the fast current, jumped and ran downstream pulling the bow of line on the water straight to the rod tip. This one was very determined to show it wasn’t a grayling, making several more acrobatic displays before calming down and being led towards the net.
That was it for the day; lots of fish I wasn’t after and just the two that I was. I left the river with a smile on my face and a spring, albeit a rather squelchy one, in my step. As I walked back across the flood plain towards the car the hawthorn trees in the old field hedges were in full blossom. Rank upon rank of pure white flowers shone like drifts of snow against the clear blue sky. Even the prospect of an afternoon’s hard labour in the garden didn’t seem too unpleasant.
Oh, and if you want to learn how to tie a simple adjustable duo rig to fish different depths of water, that doesn’t require any special flies or components and can be quickly assembled on the bank, look out for next month’s ESF.
Nick Thomas lives in South Wales. He started fly fishing on Scottish hill lochs many years ago and continues to design, tie and fish flies for trout, grayling, carp, bass and anything else that’s going.