#11 (April) Dry Fly Trout Fishing - River Derwent

Hello there welcome back to my first fly fishing video of 2017. I'm on the river Derwent and it's fairly late in the day must be about five or half past five but the sun got out about an hour ago and it's reasonably warm certainly into double figures maybe 13 to 14 degrees celsius. Now although there's loads and loads of flies everywhere I haven't seen one fish rise yet but I'm going to give this pool a go with some new flies that I got from a fella called George in I'll put the link to his channel in the video description because he does some cracking fly tying videos. I commented on some of them and he says look I'll send you some for your river, see what you think. So I'm going to give one of them a go now. Okay this is one of George's flies, this one's a parachute fly in that it's got the hackle on the top of the hook. Really at the beginning of the season on this particular river probably could have done with either a grey one or a green one but I'm giving this one a go. It's got a nice little sparkle in the thorax there as well and we'll see what happens. As you can see it floats very very well. I've given it some gink as well which is a fly floatant, that definitely helps. I fished that for about 10 minutes, quarter of an hour down there and right at the bottom end here on the far side there seemed to be some very very small fish rising. I thought there might have been like a little shoal of grayling or something they can often have very delicate takes and I had one fish look at the fly and then there was another one jumped out a little bit further up. About this big, so I think it's possibly a shoal of minnows. But that fly is floating very, very high on the water. Really there, loud and proud. Unfortunately, I just don't think there's any fish here to eat it. So let's move on. Okay, same fly, different pool. Now I've got a lovely long, slow stretch all the way downstream of where I am here. And that's the place I was really hoping to catch some fish, especially at this time of night for a little bit of an evening rise. But unfortunately I just caught a couple of guys fishing on this side of the river which is private and they've just gone back plodged straight through the top of that pool so that's that one knackered. This is really my last chance on this particular trip. If I don't catch anything here I think this may be numerous trips rolled into one to get some sort of watchable video out of this one. The first pool I was going to fish the two dudes were standing in the water as well which just it's just going to scare the fish off. The river's pretty much knackered just in case anybody's wondering it was just an honest mistake they haven't got their map from the local fishing club so you know they didn't know that they were fishing on a private stretch and they were fine about it once I explained you know. Of course some people are gonna think that I'm a jackass for throwing them off but you get permission to fish a certain stretch and you should really stick to that stretch. I totally stick to the bits that I have permission for. And I would like it if other people do that as well. It's not unheard of for people to wander onto other people's permission. I mean, I've done it when I've been metal detecting. I've crossed over, say, crossed over a stream and I'm onto somebody else's land. The farmer comes over full of hell. I've done the same on rivers as well. When I've just gone a little bit too far up and got onto somebody else's land, the boundaries aren't clear-cut sometimes. But all you can do is just hold your hands up and say, Look, I'm sorry, honest mistake. That's what these guys did, so there's not a problem. I think I would have more chance of catching bigfoot today. This is a full week later from the last video and unfortunately I met those guys who were fishing on this stretch again. I was sitting behind a tree just watching the water as I tend to do early season just to see what's going on what's hatching and they marched right across the river to within a few feet of me before they saw me so I had to remind them that it was a private stretch with no rights of way across it, which I felt awful for doing. You know how you don't want any sort of confrontation or any of that nonsense, you know, which can go on when you catch people fishing or shooting or whatever on your land. But they seemed okay about it. And if you guys are watching, I do apologize. I obviously didn't make it clear the first time, you know. And happy fishing as well, because you've got all of the club land to go at. This is just a little private stretch, about 20 metres downstream from where I'm at. I've just seen one little fish rise. I've been sitting watching, again, for about 10 to 15 minutes, just looking at what the water's doing, looking at where the submerged rocks are, what flies are hatching off, and I noticed a little tiny up-winged fly. It looked like a small olive of some sort. And when it got about four feet downstream from a submerged rock that's creating a bit of turbulence, it was a little fish took it. So that's what I'm gonna have a go for. And I've got my old faithful midgy grizzled hackle sort of grey dustery dry fly sort of thing, which works all the time on the river. Dry fly. And I'm gonna have a go for it. Wish me luck because I will need it. It's a monster! First fish of 2017 is a little brownie. I think that Looks like one that's been stocked because the colours aren't very good on it. I'd like to think that the Environment Agency are stocking small brown trout, but I'm not sure. I know the river does get stocked with larger trout of about three quarters of a pound to two pound, but they're all triploid, so they're incapable of breeding. Nice to think that there was some going in that could actually breed and repopulate as a wild population, but I don't know. That was way too far, that. I've got almost the whole line out on that one too. I've only seen two of those little upwing green flies, the olives hatching out. And I know that this fly that I've got on works because I've caught a fish and I've had another two or three go for it, which I've missed. But I'm actually going to change it. I'm going to make quite a deliberate move towards an olive. So if I can find something like a Greenwell's Glory, I'm going to put that on. I'll knock this off, put it on, and I'll show you the next fly. Don't think that's really an authentic Greenwell's Glory but it's close enough so that's what I'm gonna go for. That should represent those little olive flies that the fish are definitely feeding on. I know there's a nation of midges around, the air temperature is about 17 degrees or something which is really warm for this time of year but the water itself is really cold so there isn't a nation of flies hatching off from the water. The fish isn't going to waste energy feeding on Some tiny little midji after midji after midji after midji. when it can eat a decent sized fly. This one's about a size 14 and a lot of people would probably use a bigger fly than that to begin the season but I like to keep it small and this stuff is awesome. This particular bottle has to be 15 to 20 years old. I found it when I was clearing out the shed and it still works really really well to keep the fly afloat. It's called Gink. Tiny little, just a tiny little in my eye. Well, that one was a bit of a write-off. I actually got talking to someone who just appeared asking me if I thought it would be good for magnet fishing in the river and metal detecting in the field, and I'm, oh man, you know, I mean, it's private land. I'm sure YouTube is to blame for this. People think they can just roll up anywhere and start detecting and start magnet fishing. It's just not the case, you know. I mean, it's detecting and magnet fishing and all that. It's just like fishing or shooting. You need permission off the landowner. I'm going to have to get signs made and put up at either end of this property, I think. It's starting to get silly now. I mean, the fellas aren't doing any harm, you know, but I just feel like, I feel awful just telling them they cannot be here, you know. The fella doing magnet fishing mentioned murder weapons as well, so it's clear to see where he got that idea from. Ugh. All these murder weapons being found, it makes me think that soon nobody's going to be left alive. Everybody's going to be murdered. All the weapons are going to be thrown in the river. Magnet fishermen are fine. Anywho, let's get back and try and catch some fish. Next, we've got the guy in the big pool that I was going to fish on the way back. Tearing it up with a magnet, looking for his murder weapons. Got a little fish rising in front of me. I've got my son and his friend coming up the other side of the river. So I think my time here is just about done. I'm gonna have a few casts, try and catch this trout, then that'll be it for this particular session. Hello, welcome back. This is the third time I'm fishing this river this year, 2017. First time, didn't catch anything. Second time, caught one very small fish in here. This time I think I'm going to do quite a lot better because it's a much nicer day, there's plenty of flies hatching and there's a few fish rising as well. So hopefully this one will be better. I've got a little fish about 10 yards in front of me, about 10 metres, maybe it's a little bit more. It's rising the occasional time in the middle of the river there. I'm going to have a go for that one and then see what else turns up. I'm using the same fly as last time, which is the dry Greenwell's Glory, because it is very much olive season. So far, I haven't caught anybody fishing here, and I haven't encountered anybody looking for murder weapons with their magnets. So it's all good. I've failed here, so we're off to a great start. There's a few fish rising a little bit further down. It's more difficult to cast in there, but I'll give it a go. They're definitely feeding quite solidly down there, so hopefully with the amount of ripples that are on the water, I'll be able to get close enough to them because they'll not be able to see out as well as if the water was calm. That'll make sense to fly fishers. Probably won't make sense to anybody else, but basically the more rippled the water is, the closer you can get to the fish. I've crawled them hands and knees to halfway down the pool. The fish are still rising, so I haven't scared them. I've got totally nettled as well. There's loads of nettles around here. Yeah. Hopefully it'll be worth it. It should be easy to catch these ones. I haven't done very well so far. I've let myself down. Well, that one came up, had a look, missed the fly. So I just gave it a little twitch and left it. Bang. And this is going right through the pool. It's probably scaring everything else off. Oh, This one is absolutely my going for it. We're going to have to go God. upstream to land this one because I missed the no net. Well, it's a stocky, but it's a very hard fighting stocky. Barbel of smoke, straight out. It's not bad. Make a nice meal for somebody, but it's going back. Awesome. I know it was a stocky, but it was a decent fish. And it fought hard. So let's try and catch another one. I should really just clarify what I mean by stocky as well. Stocky is basically a stocked fish. It looks like it had been in a while, but it certainly wasn't a wild fish. Its fins were kind of rounded, and its dorsal fin was flat. Its dorsal fin should have been proud. Definitely a stocked fish. A stocky. Look what I'll do, I'll go back downstream a little bit, I'll just sit there, back in position, let everything settle, and I'll have another go with a different fly, and I'll use one of those flies that I got from Ireland. Okay, this is what we're going for now. It's an orange parachute fly. I'm not quite sure what orange is going to represent. I was looking for a green one, but unfortunately there wasn't a green one in there. But I'm going to give the orange one a go. It's got a little sparkly thorax as well, which is kind of just before the head of the fly. You can't see it, it's not sparkling very much but it's basically a little bit sparkly on the dark bit and then it's got orange, like an orange body, and then it's got like a grey sort of whitey hackle wound that way on, not that way. Now the big problem with fishing such a still piece of the river is that the fish can see every little imperfection in the line, they also get a good long look at the fly. as it comes over them so ideally you want to try and drop it as close to them as possible in the still water in the faster moving water where it's rippled you want to give them a little bit of time to see it before it gets to them because it's going to be moving faster but if they have too long to look at the fly they can spot that it's not a real fly you know so it makes it a little bit more difficult especially when the water is so clear as well And just a note, if anybody's not familiar with fly fishing, you would always drop the fly upstream of where the fish actually rose because the water's going that way down the river. The fish is going to be pointing upriver. It's going to see something and it's going to come up in like a loop and it's actually going to rise further downstream from where it was normally sitting and then it would come back along the bottom and take its position up again and it would see something and it would rise in that circular motion again. And in the faster water they tend to stay in exactly the same place whereas in the still water they can move around a little bit which makes dropping it right on top of the fish or just above the fish that much more difficult. Or should I say that much more pot luck. It's not any more difficult to cast. It just makes dropping it at the right place less predictable. That's why it's always good to approach a pool quietly so you don't disturb the fish and then just sit there for a few minutes, especially early season when the fish aren't rising much. Study where they're rising and then you can get a good appreciation of where they actually might be lying, which is generally upstream from where they're actually rising. Therefore, you'll know when to cast. Never just run straight towards the side of the river and start lashing away because chances are you're going to scare the fish. There could be some rising very, very close in. Always go for those ones first and then work your way out. And if you've had a couple of casts and it goes quiet, just sit for a few minutes, wait for them to start rising again. Especially if you're not very good at casting because I know a lot of people can whip the water, which isn't very good because the fish just gets scared off. You really want to keep your fly line out of the water with as few strokes as possible before the fly actually covers the fish. It's gone pretty dead at the moment. There's one rising right at the far end, but I don't want to cover the whole pool with the line because I will scare fish that are between that fish right at the far side and me. I want to wait until the rise in the middle, try and take those ones out first, and then go for the one right at the far side. Because the further the line gets away, the less good my casting will be. Oh, sorry. This is a better fish. It's not as big, but it's wild. Look at the difference in that one. Red spots on it. Decent-sized dorsal fin. Just a really, really nice fish, and that's been feeding quite heavily. Look at the belly on that fella. Maybe it's half a pound in weight, which is about a quarter of a kilo. Nice fish. It's going back as well. And that one was on that orange parachute fly, and that was a wild fish, so it's seen pretty much everything that people have thrown at that, and it still took it. I would never think of using orange at this time of year, with it being only mid-April. In fact, it's the 22nd or the 21st or something. Normally I'd just be using greens and greys, and possibly blacks as well if it was a very warm day, which it isn't. Never oranges. Sometimes use browns on a night, but that worked. That's the first fly that I've tried, and it worked on a wild fish, so I'm over the moon with that. And that one at the far side is still rising. If I'd gone for that one at the far side first, it would have created a hell of a commotion, and that little wild fish probably would have disappeared. The fact that I've pulled that little wild fish out of the way of that big fella Means that now, I can put a line out right across the other side and try and catch the big one. Now the reason I totally crawled along the bank side is I didn't want my silhouette to be seen by the fish because the fish are a lot lower than the surrounding bank side. They're looking up and if they see somebody walking along the top of the bank side, they know that there's somebody there. Whereas me, all in green, against the totally green background, just crawling along the side, they don't see me. That's why I'm able to get very close to the fish, even when there's clear water. I was just bringing that one back wet. I cast it in and it sunk, so I just thought I'd just bring it back wet with a figure of eight retrieve. I've got a really lazy take. I think this is another stocked fish. And I think this is going to be the last one in this pool. I don't want to harass them too much. And this is fighting like a bream or something. It's absolutely awful. But it's a brown trout. It's got no life to it at all. It would have been a stocked fish. It will get better, and I will give it the chance to get better because when I get it out to show you, I'll put it back. The way this one was rising, I thought it was a tiny little fish. It just shows that the big fish don't always make big splashes. There you go. Another stocky. That one's in better condition than the first one. And like the first one, he's going back. What a difference an extra week or so, an extra few days of warmish weather makes. The fish are really feeding now. And that one's rising at the far end of the pool there that I was going to have a go for. I'm not going to have a go for that one now. I'm going to continue down the river and see what's down there. That one was on that orange parachute fly, so that's two fish on the orange parachute fly, which is not floating very well now, but it's caught one dry and it's caught one wet, so it's still doing okay. It's pretty windy down here and that's often good because there's a lot of terrestrial insects get blown into the river. Also they get blown out of the trees and they drop down as well and just behind me there there's a tree that's half fallen across the river and that's absolutely covered in ivy. There's always things dropping out of that into the river below. So I think that's where I'm going to go now although I am looking in these rapids up here and nothing's happening. I might fish down to that. I think I'll go back to, I'll open the box, have a look and then decide. Now I'm not sure whether I've done this before in any of my videos, but I'm going to just like have a quick look into my fly box. This is the one that I take most of my fly patterns from. There you go. What a lovely mix of colors there is in there. And all of those ones are dry flies. I've got a few little wet flies in here, mostly in greens, blacks and gingery colors, and there's also a gold head one there. I don't use them very much at all. That's the biggest pattern. That's tied on a size 10 and that one's meant to represent a mayfly. I wouldn't use something that big at all unless the mayfly were hatching. Now generally what I would use is something like this. It's almost like a grey duster with a tail with a grizzly hackle and that represents a whole host of things that hatch out all year round. It's dry and I love to fish with that one. It's size 16 that one I think. Pretty small. This fly rarely fails me. It works all year. It's very, very good in slow water and in fast water. I actually met a couple of guys recently. I was asking them what size flies they use. They were using like size 10s. It's massive, absolutely massive. Once the fish get used to those getting thrashed and dropped on top of the water, they don't want to know about anything anywhere near the size of that. So as they get more wily, you've got to step the fly size down. So there's a tip for you. If you're fishing anywhere where there's quite a lot of fishing pressure from anglers, not from cormorants and so on, chances are the fish have seen a hell of a lot of flies. Most of the time those flies will be big. So if there's still fish rising but you can't catch them, just step the size of the fly down. Knowing what you're trying to imitate helps as well. So if you learn your flies, your natural flies that is, what's actually hatching out on land and also from the river, you know what size fly will match that best. And the closer you can get to that, the more chance you have of catching fish. So on one hand, if I used a mayfly pattern, which was that size, when the mayfly were hatching, the fish just wouldn't look at it. But if I used a midgie pattern, which was the size of a mayfly, they wouldn't look at that either. Everything has to be in proportion. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in any of my previous videos as well, but that's what I use to keep the dry flies afloat. That's called gink. That's available all over the place online. I'll put an Amazon link in the video description, So if you want to check it out, That's what I would recommend. It's best to keep it in your pocket to keep it very, very liquefied because when it's cold and you've got it in your box, it tends to go like jelly and it doesn't go on very well. So if you keep it in your pocket, it makes it go very runny and it's a lot easier to apply to the fly. You only need a tiny little bit as well. You can make it runnier by blowing on it. If the weather's cold like it is now, put that lightly on your fly. And rub it into that rabbit fur body as well because rabbit fur takes on a lot of water if it hasn't got any treatment on it. There you go. You can see all of the hackle fibres and the wings are well separated. The last thing you want when you're putting floatant on is for it all to be gunked together because you'll chuck it in and it'll just sink. The better separated they are, the better it'll float. You can get it really well covered in the floatant and really well separated by just giving a few false casts. You whip off all the excess stuff and you distribute. the rest of it where it's needed okay we've got that tree with all the ivy hanging off it just up here and below there is always a good bet for fish if you've got such a feature as that tree with all that I've definitely try fishing just straight below it right at the limit of my casting range and ability now this one's worth showing you this is what a wild fish Look at the colours on that, beautiful yellows, red spots, black back. Absolutely lovely, as far as I'm concerned I think that is the fish of the session, most definitely the best one on this video, not the biggest but the most beautiful and a little wild fish of that sort of size and that sort of education is not going to take a huge dry fly like that, unless the mayfly are hatching and it's going absolutely berserk with all the other fish. During that fortnight when the mayfly hatch on any river you can clean up, it doesn't really matter what you use, outside of that time you've got to be a bit cleverer. Now you'll notice that I'm having success in the bigger pools. That's because the water's still quite cold. There's still a few predators about as well, unfortunately. As the water warms up, the fish will move into the faster water. So I'll start and fish the runners that lead in and the rapids and so on, you know. There was a little bit of a log jam just on the other side of the river there. And there was a fish rising just out from that. It's a good place for it to seek refuge when the predators come up and down the river. So that'll be quite a wily fish, I would imagine. Hopefully it'll like this fly. I don't believe it, I missed it on the first cast when I was messing about. I think I wasted my opportunity there. I flogged on for about five minutes, and on that first cast, when I was trying to sort the line out, the fish took, spat it back out, and after that, it doesn't want to move. I've just had my wife on the phone saying that she's halfway through cooking a risotto, so I've got to go. Looking forward to that, because I'm absolutely starving. Garlic bread, mmm, nice. Can't wait for that. But I'm going to have a couple of casts in here just before I go. Anybody who fishes will know the feeling. You've just got to have one or two more casts. And if you want to see more fly fishing videos, just check out the fly fishing... No, not a fly fishing playlist. I think it's a fishing and shooting playlist on my channel. Again, I'll put the link in the video description. So check that out. And in case anybody's wondering, that is a lot further than it looks. My rod is only 7 foot long, which is 2.1 metres. Which is a really small rod, but believe it or not, this is my big river rod. My small river rod is 6 foot 6, and that one's like a weight 2 or something. This one's a weight 4, I think. I always like to travel light and fish light. Thanks very much for watching. I'll see you next time.