#12 (May) Dry Fly Trout Fishing - River Derwent

Now generally I don't like fishing downstream with a dry fly, I like to either fish across or upstream and allow it to drift. I don't really like feeding it line and just working it down the river because that's very easy but in this case we've got a couple of fish rising probably about 15, 16 metres away and if I fished it from anywhere else other than here it would be very difficult. The back cast's got trees, there's a fence above me, there's high vegetation so if I If I can keep the line. Over the river, I'm going to get an easy cast down here, and hopefully a fish. Missed it again. It's a lot easier to hook them when you're fishing across the river or upstream. Case in point, I've barely missed a fish up to this point. The minute I start fishing downstream, the fish comes, and it tries to get it, and I whip it straight out of its mouth. Got to give it a bit longer. How many has that I've missed in a row? Four? Five? It's very easy to get the take, but it's hard to get them to stick. I just can't get them to stick. So many fish, so little success. I've got a few fish rising across the other side. It's like a broken down tree just up here. It's almost touching the water further down. That's too far for me to cast. But just above that, there's a couple of fish rising there. Downstream from me, just behind my head, we've got a sycamore that's almost touching the water. There's fish below that, and there's a submerged rock out here. There's a fish just at the other side of that, which is going to be a nightmare to cast to. I was miles away, I just let it drift all the way down. Silvery little brownie, there you go. That's the smallest one of the year. That one really hammered it. A lot of action further down, so that's where I'm going. Hopefully there's enough fish rising to keep the water rippled, to allow me to go down the bank side without them seeing me, because it's very exposed there. Well, unfortunately the fish have stopped rising here when I've come down. I've obviously scared them on my way down the side of the river. I'm not going to just leave. I'm going to sit and wait for about five, six minutes. As soon as one starts rising, the rest will start rising. When they do, I'll start with the nearest one and work my way out. There's a good five minutes past, and the last time when I switched this spot, I was literally on my hands and knees crawling along the bank side. This time, I was just crouched down, and I haven't seen a fish rise in casting distance this time. The last time, the fish obviously didn't see me. Same conditions, roughly the same sort of temperature. That's the only difference is the way that I approached this pool. I wasn't low enough. I needed to be crawling in order not to scare the fish. Not one rose and I've been here about quarter of an hour. That's good because that means that these fish are learning. This is where I caught two big stockies last time. When I was upstream looking down towards here, it looked like fish of that sort of size were rising in exactly the same place as they were rising last time, which makes me think those stockies were still in. My approach wasn't good enough, it scared them off, so that means that they're learning, and that's a great thing, because unless somebody crawls along here on their hands and knees, it's going to be difficult for them to catch them, until mayfly season, then the fish will be going berserk. There's one rising further down, which really looks like a good one, I'm going to have a go for that, and I'm going to go on my hands and knees, at the risk of being badly nettled again. Let's have a giveaway. Okay, now unfortunately because of the weight of this gear that I'm going to be giving away, this is only open to people in the UK. It would cost me a fortune to send to the US where I know I've got a lot of viewers. There will be other videos coming up with giveaways in, so just keep your eyes open. There will be some cracking stuff to give away worldwide. As this is a fishing video you're watching, the prizes are more or less fishing related. First of all, we've got four books these books are my personal ones so they aren't new some have been well read as well including the fly tying book i must have tied every fly in that book at least four or five times it's got a nation of flies in there shows you exactly how to tie them what to tie them with another book trout and salmon flies a book about dry fly fishing and also using the nymph by charles jardine and a book about Quite a famous local river near me, the River Tyne. This goes into a lot of detail about the industry, the rise of the salmon, the decline of the salmon and then the resurgence of the salmon again. Pretty much all about salmon and the river. It's a very good book. Next up we've got a little camping lantern. A little clip on the top enables you to hang it in a tree. It's got an input so you can charge it from any USB device and it's also got an outlet as well because this acts as battery 5,200 milliamp hours of storage, so you can charge your mobile phones and all that from there. It will need charging up, though. I got this sent a while back to do a review on, and it's really just too similar to one I've already reviewed. Therefore, I'm going to give that away as part of the prize. Still comes in the original box. Next up, we've got some paracord on a paracord spool. Um... If you're into the outdoors you'll know what paracord is. It's basically just like a very strong shoe lace that you can use for a variety of tasks outdoors. I think there's about 25 meters or thereabouts on there. We've also got some dragon gel. Now this stuff will take a spark and you can use it as a hand wash, an antibacterial hand wash, or as a solid fuel, sorry, a liquid fuel. When you light it, it tends to just go Extremely hot, it's waterproof as well, it's a very very good thing to have in your survival kit, bug out bag, part of your camping kit, and there's actually six blocks in there. We've got five fairly cheap plugs there, they're a sort of lure, I'm sure you'll be aware of what they are, they're not particularly good, but they have got a rattle in. It's actually like a little survival card, it's a fairly cheap item, screwdriver, can opener. Bottle opener. There's also a miniature button compass here, which, to be honest, doesn't really work. Tiny little magnifying glass. You can use that to light fires on a very warm day. And a little knife as well. And the last thing is a little survival whistle, and also, it's something called a blast match. It's not an official one, but it's like a spring-loaded fire starter. It produces sparks. You basically put your thumb on there, which would scrape this ferro rod. Godden. It will produce a shower of sparks. It enables you to light a fire one-handed. So all you've got to do if you want to win that gear is just share this video somewhere, and post the link in the comments section. So you might just say, I shared it on Google+, put the link, that's your entry. Or you might say, I shared it on a Facebook outdoor group or a Facebook fishing group, and put the link. That's your entry. One entry per person. Best of luck to everybody and I look forward to picking the winner, which I will do when this video hits 2,000 views. And then I'll send the person who's won a personal message and send the gear out. Best of luck. I've got a good feeling about this one. I haven't scared this one off yet. That's the one I was at, that. Very nice fish. I'm hoping it's wild as well. For me, a wild one's worth twice as much as a stock fish. I swear, one of these days, I am going to get a little net. It's a stocky, but it's fought hard enough. Got some real scars on it as well. I was going to show you the scars on it, but I've dropped it back in. I was going to let it go anyway. But just behind its dorsal fin, it had some recent marks. Possibly off a heron, possibly off a cormorant, although a cormorant usually leaves like a long slash. Seemed to be healing well, and it obviously didn't stop it from feeding. So I think it's going to be okay. You know how low I fish these really confined spaces underneath trees and I'm flicking under bushes and all that? I honestly can't remember the last time I got a knot in the line. It was last year when I lost a fly in the tree and I've done a bit of fishing since then. I'd say in a year's worth of fishing, which is to be honest only 10-15 sessions, I'll probably lose two flies maybe, which is pretty good given the, you know, all the overhangs that are in a lot of these pools. I can't remember the last time I've been snapped off a fish either. Can't remember the last time I dropped one. Oh yes, it was just a minute ago wasn't it. I don't know whether the camera picked that up but there's a massive bat just skimmed the water there. God it's wingspan. I don't know it's wingspan, must be nearly a foot and now it's gone. That was a big bat. A couple of nice fish, hopefully another one or two before we get home and that'll be me set for the day. Now this pool here used to be one of my favorites but in the last few seasons I haven't done very well here at all. In fact I've barely caught a fish. There's one just rising there. I'm sure it hasn't seen me. It's feeding on olives. I've got an olive pattern. That one's getting caught. It's a good fish. Oh this one is a belter. Now the huge lump of weed that's dragging along with it isn't helping but this is definitely a big fish and it again has got a huge scar on it as well. Now look at the scar. Well the open wound in that one. I wish I could have bring it back and put it in the pond but I've got nothing to put it in so it's gonna have to go back in the river. That bums me out because that'll be safe in my pond. It's a fly I caught it on. I actually changed flies. That's an orange parachute fly courtesy of George in Ireland. Check his channel out in the video description. He does some great fly tying videos. That's a good fish. Shame about the huge mark on it but it will heal up Unless there's future attacks. I can only assume that as either otter Or cormorant. Heron wouldn't be marking all these fish like that. This river's just infested with vermin. Not that I'm calling otters vermin, because obviously they aren't vermin, they're not classed as vermin. But they do do a lot of damage. I'm more inclined to think it's a cormorant. Cormorants are vermin. They're not really classed as vermin. You need a licence to shoot them, but you shouldn't need a licence to shoot them. They're absolutely destroying our rivers. And a cormorant could easily eat a fish of that size, believe it or not. They're real greedy. Things. Greedy birds. On my way back, there's a few fish rising in here. They just look like little ones, but seeing as I was passing, it would be rude not to throw a fly at them. Tapping it off again with a beautiful wild trout. Hopefully I can land this one and show you it because this one looks really beautiful. Now with this one, you'd think the red spots had been painted on. Look at that. Absolutely beautiful. And he's going straight back. Another little lad. Ah, what the hell. Bottom end of a pool has always got to be worth a go, hasn't it? As I said, tail end of the pool, always worth a go. And it's come off. That's what I get for being cocky. Well, that's Mother Nature's way of saying get back to work fatty. So that's what I'm going to do. Thanks very much for watching. If you've enjoyed this video, please check out the shooting and fishing playlist on my channel. I'll also put a link to that in the video description. There's loads more fishing videos on there and there's a notion of outdoor videos on my channel. If you want to check them out, by all means, check them out. Share them wherever you want, and I appreciate each and every view. Thanks for watching. Got some real scars on it as well. See, just in front of it, got a grippy. This pool here used to be one of my nettles. It's definitely it. That's your lot, and that's my lot as well. Thanks for watching. See you next time.