there’s certainly an autumnal feel in the air and as summer draws to a close and we near the end of the 2020 trout season. I’ve been trying to squeeze in as much fishing as I can before them shorter days and darker nights creep up on us!

Recently I’ve had some fantastic outings, many on and around my local rivers and a brilliant road trip down to the River Itchen to fish my first UK chalk stream where we sight fished for brown trout and grayling. I already cant wait to head back down there and hunt down some of them grayling!

At the end of June I took a drive up to the river tees and met up with friends Kieron Jenkins, Matt & Callum russell. where we fished the upper tees, some of the best fishing ive had, the tees has a phenomanal head of wild brown trout, nothing on the big side but great fun picking them off with sedge patterns in the pocket water! see my write up on that trip over on the Fulling Mill blog here !

since getting the go ahead to fish again after lockdown ive had some fantastic sport on my local water, the river Calder. recently catching my personal best wild brown trout from there whilst out fishing after a recent flush through from heavy rain! it certainly put my 3wt Airflo Euro Nymph rod to good use and a great fight too!

Yesterday I took my Wild Trout Trust Auction winner, Gary, out on the Calder in search for some trout and grayling. we met up in the morning, tackled up and walked down to the river.

i rigged two rods up, one with armed with a French leader with a pair of jigs. The other ready with the duo, a dry fly on the dropper and a small beaded nymph below. as we got down to the river we opted to go with the French leader set up. as we made our way up the river Gary was having some success picking up the odd Grayling but only small ones.

as we reached the top of the pool i suggested to gary that we try a dry fly through what looked a sure spot for a trout to be sitting. the cast was a tricky one, with fast flow our side we needed the fly on the far outside seam. The cast was perfect, a quick mend of the line to reduce drag from the fast flow. at this moment everything went into slow motion, it was like something out of a film. A fin perfect, stunning and greedy trout came from the depths and engulfed the sedge. the trout wasn’t a missive trout but a beauty at that! after a good old fight it was safely in the net!

We worked out way more upstream and came to a pool where not much was happening in terms of fly life, the wind had picked up too so a switch back to the nymph set up it was. it wasn’t long before we were finding some of the nicer fish and Gary hooked into a lovely Grayling to which he informed me it was his personal best to date!

we finished the day on a high with gary catching another beautiful brown trout. a brilliant day all round, we hope to meet up in the future for some more fishing!

as im writing this the sun is shining and im toying with the idea of heading out for some fishing, as i said at the beginning them shorter days and dark evenings will soon be here so i better make the most of it while i can!

tight lines!