29 September 2013

A day on the Burns

Felt like a cast with the wee rod today so decided on a burn i had yet to wet a line on this season, known locally as the yellow burn . Its just a short stroll from the grayling burn so i intended  to give that some attention at some point too.

The  water was low the fish incredibly spooky and it was difficult to get close to any fish without emptying the pool of scared trout. The broken water was the best bet , otherwise it was a case of doing the best i could with a long leader on the flat flow- less pools but the odds were definitely in the trouts favour.
 
A yellow trout from the yellow burn
  Here and there a few little trout were caught .
 After a few hours on this burn i headed for the grayling burn. On arrival  it appeared low and coloured and apart from a few dropped fish on the first few pools , i felt it wasn't going to produce , so I decided to head downstream to where the main tributary joins it and fish above a couple of large pools. 

Finding these pools to access from the path proved difficult but i finally found the river after clambering my way through some dense undergrowth . The water looked great , but it was really quite dour, it came as no surprise though as this stretch does have a reputation as being poor.
I fished away and it came as a bit of a shock when i finally hooked into a fish.
It continued being really quite poor until suddenly the fishing picked up. In one particular pool i picked up around five  browns  , maybe grouping up for spawning?
The last pool of the day produced the best fish .
last pool

It had been a tough days fishing , but what great weather we are still experiencing, long may it continue.

Hangover cure

I hadn't really gave it much thought where I would be fishing this weekend, added to that I wasn't feeling particularly lively yesterday morning with a bit of a hangover to be honest. When I eventually got myself going I decided that somewhere local would suit fine so in the end I had a look at the grayling burn.



It was a fine afternoon, perhaps not for fishing with the bright sunshine, but days like these are numbered now so it was nice to fish in short sleeves again before the cooler temperatures kick in. The pool I start of on nearly always produces a trout and today was no different when an acrobatic pounder managed to shed the dirty polly from its jaws.  I continued on my way upstream fishing some normally productive pools without a touch, with very little fly life on the water there wasn't a riser to be seen, then in the head of a shaded pool the dirty polly shot under and I struck into to a weighty trout which had taken the glister nymph.


I never got another touch after that but was contented taking in the early autumn  colours.


hawthorn leaves


I fished up to a pool not to far from where the car was parked so at that point decided to up sticks and take a look at another burn not to far away.


Being heavily tree lined this burn offers more shade, and from the off the trout were in taking mood



 a couple of hours passed as I worked my way up a small section of this beautiful wee burn


 it had been a great afternoon and better still my hangover had well and truly gone!