With a welcome change in both weather and forecast it is perhaps a smile and a warm glow that adorns anglers keen to put behind them some ‘topsy turvy’ conditions that have either made or ruined an otherwise good days fishing.

Today good friend Keith Passant joined us for his first visit to a stretch of the Wylye… with lush green foliage but yet still high water we looked forward to something… anything… that would show interest to some of our meagre offerings.

Whilst I spent the best part of an hour dithering with my recent leader/indicator innovation, Warren and Keith made haste with their setups and went on to wet a line…

Paying particular attention to a fly Keith tied and decided to fish (I daren’t show you its scale)

Needles to say a good fish rose to the far bank opposite Keith. Now this fish is significant in that since April, Warren, Richard and I have tempted this particular fish to the fly but never quite nailed it… Keith had all but two well placed casts with said fly and…

well… nailed it he did… a stunning fish falling to a fly that did nothing other than command surprise.

Before even wetting a line myself for having dithered so long, it was time to play chef… bacon baps for lunch. Not sure if Warren’s enjoying my efforts or is about to ‘chunder’

Desperate to make amends for not having yet fished, it’s to the one handed bacon butty technique

Post lunch of baps, crisps, mars bars and tea… then more tea, we soon got down to the more serious business of fishing.

Warren below in the weir (testing) pool at the bottom of our beat with the new indicator

There’s the take right there…

I wish I could say he nailed the fish but fly fishers don’t lie.. @#&$!

With exacting setups we both focus hard and look for any micro movement… easily seen they are too

Unlike Warren I’m nailing mine… (It’s my blog and I can write what I want so ner ner)

Keith trying all manner of his excellent flies at the top of our stretch

With light fading we fish both dry and nymph to tempt some of the more regular incumbents. Given the weather we were quite surprised there was so little surface activity…

…even though a good mixture of fly were regularly active throughout the early to late afternoon: Cased and free swimming caddis, long horn sedge and a healthy number of mayfly

Let’s hope this vein of weathers continues… enjoy your fishing ~ Jim

Having last week procured a wee small stretch of the river Wylye, Warren and I looked forward to an afternoon of some much needed graft as a precursor to fishing it for the very first time.

What an absolute calamity, I chose an entry route through an access field down to the river, stuck it in 4X4 ultra low drive and immediately grounded my vehicle on a pile of rocks and s**t (for want of a better description). So twas to shovel some s**t we went… for all of about an hour.

At last – down at the rivers edge

All tooled up, strimmers, saws, loppers and other implements with which to do ourselves harm

Some work to do both in and out of the water

Oops… not quite the right oil to petrol mixture me thinks… cough!

With Warren using my strimmer due to his having gone caput!… I go all Grim Reaper and scythe

We’re engulfed by strong, sweet smelling wild Garlic so prolific along this river bank… mmmm!

With a silt like river bed I anticipate good hatches of fly life from the burrowers

No Not these… tut!

these… our first Mayfly

Canopy slightly trimmed as the growth of foliage makes for weighty low hanging branches

She’s looking pretty, prim & proper… and oh so inviting, here’s looking to our first fish on Thursday

I’m hoping for a little less of the wet stuff so this stretch can drop a little and clear up to make its inhabitants that much easier to see… if there are any that is.