A reason to like Big Brother?

I've found a reason to like Big Brother - It gives me a legitimate excuse to leave the house & go fishing at 9 when the wife insists on watching it.

Again had a really enjoyable last couple of hours fishing into the dark, striking at splashes & hoping to connect to a monster fish.

Twilight trouting

God I love this time of year!!!!!

Jibbed out for an after the Portugal Germany game on Thursday & had a fantastic hour targeting rising fish in the twilight. The slower glassy smooth glides that have seemed to be devoid of fish so far this year came alive in the perpetual dusk.

The fishing was electric but, the midges were worse than anything in Scotland. It was great to be able to thread a new fly on in the light after being snapped by a lunker but, the midges drive you to distraction, so much so that I missed a number of takes whilst scrathing my head. I'll be back this weekend armed with hat & jungle formula!

Saturday

The first of the day after finally getting out of bed about 2pm
A heron like Tom stalking his quarry under the trees.

Monday evening

Had a couple of hours wading the river on Monday evening, wasn't sure what'd be doing as it had been 23 during the day & the bright sun was still on the water till 8 o'clock, with this in mind I opted to try some tree covered tunnel like sections. There was plenty of fly activity on the water with a hatch of little up winged Olives occuring which the trout were sipping down in the shaded riffles, so I decided to try out a little Sparkle Dun I'd tied.

The sparkly tail is meant to represent the shuck of the emerging fly as it sits in the surface film waiting to fly off thus making it an easy & tempting morsel for a waiting trout.

The fly worked really well accounting for all the fish of the evening, I did try a little Deer Hair Emerger but, they didn't seem interested but were quite happy slashing at the sparkle.

Leeches! - Found these blood sucking little bastards while turning rocks looking for bugs. I should start collecting them & practicing a bit of bloodletting, I believe it's making a comeback in the NHS.

Dirty Old Town

Ahhhh bucolic Salford! - Spent an enjoyable evening down the ship canal with Mike last week among the Herons, Waterfowl & freely rising fish, the calm waters were only intermittently interupted by a booming cox from one of the sweeping skiffs - surely a scene more reminiscent of Henly than Pomona Docks!

Is this a first for the ship canal? - a dry fly caught roach (pic courtesy of Mike - Manchester fishing fiend blog)

Mayfly Time - Ullswater

Here's some pics from the New Zealand lads reunion weekend on Ullswater. Myself, Rich(Leeds) Elksy(Stoke) & Tom Spent the weekend camped out on Ullswater in anticipation of a decent hatch of Mayfly.
We canoed over to a little secluded bay in the newly acquired HMS Bob Woolmer and set up camp for the weekend. It's been a while since we went feral but, we slipped into the old ways with ease. In the pic you can see HMS Bob in the foreground, Rich in the back ground setting up a tarp & the 'fridge' is just off to right in the lake.
The view from camp looking down Patterdale - truly stunning!
Friday nights evening meal consisted of grilled Rainbow Trout & baked potatoes courtesy of Tom & his Dad fresh from Ghyll Head earlier in the day.

After waking up to sausages & beer for breakfast & a flat calm Ullswater we decided to make a trek up to a hill Tarn for a cast.

There was a shed load of Caddis crawling all over the place.A beautiful little Tarn brownie.
Later that evening back at camp, Tom spotted a nice brownie sipping mayfly off the surface from his vantage point perched on a rocky bluff & managed to drop an Adams right in its tracks and bagged this superb Ullswater Brown!

Wahey!