With the ever changing weather and yet another days instruction re-scheduled, I trek to my local (The Avon) for some Chub fishing. I wanted grayling really but have since given up on these here, sadly it’s a stretch of river that seems to have gone backwards as far as the fly angler is concerned be it for either grayling or trout. What ever happens today I care not as long as I don’t catch rainbow stockies.

Not really flood levels but higher and more coloured than would be favourable.

Wading with care, not sure sometimes if the branches are hanging low or the water’s up to meet em’

At pace… even he struggled to get through this pushing glide and out the other side.

That’s what I’m after, I know this pool well and it’s got Chub written all over it…

Look harder… can you see now?

In we go, nymphing armoury at the ready.

Having made lots… and lots… of repeated casts through a typical food lane, and missing two fish within minutes of each other due to my incompetence I manage to nail this little pretty handful.

A break between sessions, looking for respite out of this b##ch of a wind.

Moving through into waist high stuff I know of a hole that’s darn deep. Everything today coming to a peeping caddis mixed with varying shot patterns. For this pool we go ugly, 2 x No.4 shot… spadoosh!

It felt like chucking bolas at times, crikey! I nearly lost my where with all. Some little tinkers later that seemed no bigger than the fly, I ended with a peach of a similar generation to the previous.

A smashing afternoon on what could otherwise have been a miserable one, it don’t pay bills though so here’s hoping the weather turns favourable in the coming weeks. Happy ‘Lady’ pulling ~ Jim

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And a Good Friday it has certainly been. I journeyed to the Nadder with Warren in search of both water and fish… only to be confronted with… both… ha! there’s a surprise.

Not to exaggerate but there’s a few million gallons more than I’d been used to in recent months

We made the most of an early start and with no fly activity to adorn some silky smooth glides, we opted for the nymph in the deeper pools. With a brisk breeze and the face feeling warm in the sun, the water however was ruddy freezin’. Warren’s jewels were almost testicle testament to the cold temperature – not that he was willing to share on camera of course.

The water had a tinge of colour from whence we know not. We could see shapes but little definition, one thing was for sure, grayling were in abundance and visibly high in the water on many occasions.

Almost immediately we started pulling fish on ptn’s and caddis imitations… nothing of any noticeable size however, this was about the average… some were that small they were discernable from the fly.

Late morning and well into the afternoon see’s the flight of the Grannom and the rises it attracts throughout the river – accompanied by the odd LDO that fell more into the category of ‘much a do about nothing’. The active fish were seemingly none too picky either… CDC, klinkhammers and elk hair sedge being equally accountable for the notable takes… unfortunately everything was grayling.

We seemed to have hit on a particular generation of almost identical fish with only but a salmon parr and two smaller trout interrupting an otherwise one sided affair. We absolutely cleaned up between us… awesome fun made more the merrier using rods that befitted the catch, 10ft #2 weights… we’d not had so much fun in a long time. Having not had too much success on this particular stretch during winter months in search of grayling, it was fabulous to see so many… all be it at an untimely juncture in this the trout season – Have a great Easter Weekend all