14th june,willersly castle,surfs up dude

11th june ,dovedale,muddy water blue's

arrived at dovedale with high hopes with micks
report the afternoon before only to be greeted
with a muddy coloured dove .a few mayfly still
skittering about but most of them floating on
downstream to do their buisness .the ducks were
having a mayfly feast skewing from bank to bank
in search of the smorgasbord on offer with a few
attracted to my mayfly .

met neil h off the forums who reported catching
a few on nymphs which to say i had been fishing
for a couple of hours with nothing to show for
my hard endeavours impressed me no end.

did spot some well developing blackthorn bushes
which meens the sloe's will be a success this year
after last years poor harvest.
for any fellow forager there is some nice gooseberry's
growing just before the boards.

met victor again who was fishing with a mate
who like myself struggled with the conditions.
hope the dove clears soon giving us one last
dance with the mays.

4th june,dovedale,one more cast

had a lovely afternoon fishing dovedale with
conditions perfect and mayfly still getting a
battering from the trout.

quite a few laddfa chaps out this afternoon
met a nice guy called victor who was taking
pictures whilst fishing.
his set up could not be any different to my own
with a 6 ft 3# rod ,low breaking strain tippet
and a delicate cdc mayfly whereas mine was
more along the vulcan bomber lines with my
trusty sage 5# ,4lb tippet(pull out of most trees)
and a great big hairwing mayfly.
he offered me a few casts with his setup which
i did manage to hook a nice trout with but was very
wary in case me bliztkreig casting damaged his
delicate rod.

caught all afternoon on the mayfly with the
trout still hard on them.

met up with roger bryant off the forums on the
way back downstream and we fished the nursery
pool for a while with the fish becoming very
fussy with several coming under the fly only to
have a butchers hook then turn tail back down.

roger left after a while leaving me to fish into

the twilight in the homeward stretch towards

the footbridge.noticed a couple of rises so cast

and hooked into my best fish of the day which

was beatifully marked ,below

cracking days fishing.

2nd june,willersley castle,derwent tigers

fabulous evenings fishing with some great fighting
trout on the derwent at willersley castle.they
were on the mayfly although the hatch was not
as prolific as the dove recently.

lovely weather spoilt a bit by my choice of thigh
waders which i soon went over depth with
leaving my feet wet all night

a good mixture of stock and wild trout some

pushing 1.5 lb all fighting well

this one below was the fish of the night which i

caught under the trees hence the the light on

the picture not very good.

good night will be back soon.

31st may,darley dale

went to darley dale with mick today and boy
was it hot on arrival my cars thermometer was
showing 25 .
the river was alive with mayfly and midge with
the odd trout hammering into the mays.
did catch on my own tied mayfly which was a
first for me.below the lovely shade of this tree
made a nice picnic site

caught one or two but was not brilliant fishing
until the evening cooled down taking 5 in the
last 20 minutes on balloon caddis and spent
mays.

nice days fishing apart from twisting my
ankle on a rut made by a cows hoof ,maybe
the cows were getting revenge for me eating
corned beef sandwhiches.mick thought it was
funny,not as funny as his late attempt to
hook a fish(see video below)

mayfly fill the air.





mick a bit slow in striking.