Trout on the Fly Part Three.

 The last few weeks since the 1st of April I have managed to get out once a week in search of Trout and with these trips I have had a couple of things in mind, one of which is to further improve my casting and secondly to try and catch a Brownie that will challenge my PB of 6lb 6oz, which although seems a tall order I believe is very slightly possible, but unless you try you never know, after Saturday and the last minute arrival of a Crucian at Marsh Farm I was in a bouyant mood and felt that if I had got my presentation and selection right I may do better than I have during my previous visits this month.

 The last few days have bought quiet a bit of rain and when I reached the river it was still showing signs of colour and extra water but you can always fish the shallower runs that are usually gin clear whatever the conditions, recently though I have seen a hand-full of large Trout between 3-5lb, so finding one of those was my aim but they were much further down the beat, the plan was to fish down to them, maybe catch a couple along the way and the session very nearly started well but the crafty spotty hit the fly on the drop and simply caught me by surprise, by the time I struck the fish was gone, it happens to the best of us.



 Along the way down river there are some very lovely looking pieces, very healthy and got a decent stamp of Trout to back it up, unfortunately most of which weren't feeding or just wanted to ignore my offering but after around an hour I came across my first fish that showed a willingness to take and on the second retrieve a small bow wave appeared behind the fly as it was being pursued, a split second later the rod slammed over, I made no mistake with this one and this was the first of the day at around a pound or so.

A slim hen Trout between 1.0 & 1.4.

 As the day went on the sun disappeared behind thick clouds that started to leak water and the wind crept up, but that was the least of my worries when a mass amount of cut grass was dumped into the river upstream by some idiot, it made the fishing very difficult as the presentation was all wrong, because of this I had to then start working the fly down the water column to avoid the grass in the upper layers, but I had a couple of aces up my sleeve in regards to positions of a couple of large Trout I had spotted last week and after a long hard look through a 50 yard stretch I spotted my target, now the hard work had began. But to cut a long story short I had after 30-40 minutes managed to find out what fly to use, how deep to fish it and where to present it when the most vicious of takes occured, purely brutal is the only thing that springs to mind, on very light rod and 4lb leader this fish was to certainly put me through my paces and test me.

 After a heart stopping 5 minute battle, countless bursts up and downstream a big cock fish headed into a slightly small net considering the size of what I had just banked, just what I wanted and just for ten minutes I forgot how awful I felt from this illness that's hanging around, arguably one of the most perfect of Brown Trout I will ever see, teeth that would tear through any leader lighter than I was using plus eventually would have done mine too, so this is my season's best Trout, all 4lbs 6ozs of it.

Perfection.

 

4.6 of absolute power of almost biblical proportions.

 After that fish was revived and released back to it's aqua world I headed back up the beat to maybe find another fish to cast at but found it difficult to bother any more Trout, I'll leave them for another time, that one was enough and not forgetting the smaller one earlier in the day, another cracking couple of hours fishing.