Mayfly magic returns!
Some of the happiest memories that I have are of a great many days spent
fishing dry fly for mayfly taking trout on our glorious Derbyshire rivers
at the appropriate time of the year.
Though some years have seen flooded rivers at this time there have been
a lot of years when the amazing flies have hatched in profusion and provided
exciting sport.
I had resigned myself to never enjoying another mayfly season because
I am no longer able to creep and crawl on all fours to fish pool after
pool without lingering too long on swims where I have scared the fish
despite all my efforts to avoid this.
However, a call from an old friend inviting me to enjoy a day fishing
in the mayfly on a particularly lovely and secluded length of a Derbyshire
stream tempted me to give it a try.
I have found over the years that though the mayflies start hatching in
the latter part of May, the best of the fishing is between June 5 and
12, with the best day of all often the eighth. My invitation was for the
fifth.
I decided to stay beside one particular pool where a fast flowing current
fed into a sizeable pool.
It could hardly have worked out better. After sitting quietly just watching
the water for half an hour, noting the different trout that were in front
of me and where they were rising, I started to fish.
I will not name the venue because it does not pay to attract those loathsome
poachers whom I consider the scum of the earth, but regular Derbyshire
river enthusiasts will recognise the river when I say that it is undoubtedly
the clearest water river in the whole of Britain.
To my delight a good brown trout grabbed my artificial Wulff type mayfly
as soon as it touched the surface on my first cast of the afternoon when
the real mayflies started to appear after 1.30pm.
I landed that fish and had another take that I failed to hook next cast
and caught another third throw.
Then I rested the pool again and enjoyed lovely sport at intervals. Mainly
wild brownies of decent size, but also a wild rainbow among them.
I shared the pool with coots with chicks, and various ducks, and waterhens,
and I spotted a kingfisher.
Truly there is a heaven and a hell, but not some place in the sky or the
bowels of the earth. We humans make both heaven and hell right here on
earth, and sadly these days it is often the latter through our stupidity.