#9 Dry Fly Fishing for Trout in Mid-Summer

It's been a little bit of rain over the last few days and the water in the river is slightly coloured. So what I'm hoping is that it'll have cooled the water down a little bit, made the fish a little bit less sluggish because cold water holds more oxygen than warm water. Um... The wind might help blow things off trees for the fish to feed on and with the water being coloured I might be able to get close to them with this little seven foot rod. Because up to now, the water's been crystal clear. Very, very difficult to fish. The vegetation on the sides of the river's way up. So you've pretty much just got to stalk the fish down the side of the river. So I'm not sure if I'm going to catch anything today, but we'll see. Conditions look good. I'm using a little dry fly, which is an upwinged Adams, size 18. So it's really, really small. I was dragging that back under the water. It's just come off. It's just a little brownie, about six inches. Completely different approach now. I've switched to a size zero silver flicker spinner. They're fairly difficult to cast on this tiny little rod, but I've noticed quite a few fairly well-developed minnows in the shallows. It's getting towards the end of the day, and I think with this summer, the minnows, heightened aggression of the fish, they might just produce the goods, especially in the faster parts. So we'll give it a go. Well, that idea seemed to work out. That one's dropped off as well. These flicker spinners might be absolutely awful to cast on a small rod, but in the summer they really are an excellent way of catching fish. Well, that one didn't drop off. Look at the colour on that. Oh, I've just dropped it. At least I got it to hand, third time lucky. So that's three fish I've had on just in this little runner. I'm going to go down a little bit further because it's a bit calmer down there and there's definitely bigger fish down there. Looks like there's two pretty big fish. Down there, just at the limit of my casting range. Casting these flicker spinners is terrible, and I've got to go under a tree. So I may not be successful here, but I'm going to give it a go. That's the hazards of having something that's terrible to cast. You get stuck in trees. So I'm going to try and play it safe now. I'm going to put a longer leader on of about 10 feet, 11 feet maybe, which is 3 metres to 3.3 metres long. Four pound nylon, which is, ooh, what's that? 1.83 kilos, breaking strain nylon. I think I'm going to go for a dry fly with a bit of ginger in it, because it's at that time of year when you get a lot of sedge hatching out. The fish might just take that with it being the end of the day. Now, I've got to confess that I don't actually know what that is. It looks almost like a nymph, but it's got an upright hackle on it. It's tied on a wet fly hook, but I'm going to try and make it float. I've covered it in gink. And the front end of that fly is nice and ginger. The back end is like a dark olive colour, which might be sort of a more April-May sort of colour. Because it's quite nymph-y, if it gets all the way down there and sinks, I can bring it back as a wet fly. So I'm kind of hoping this one has a dual purpose. We'll see. It floats pretty well with all that gink on it. Fish are still rising down there, so there's a good chance of another one here. Unfortunately, that's a stocky. It's been in a while, so it's pretty well healed, but it isn't very fat. Still quite a nice fish though. He's going back. I really should keep these fish and put them in my pond, you know. I always forget to bring a bucket. The beauty of a shot. I just rolled it underneath the tree. There you go. It's another stocky, round about a pound. Pretty full finned that one, but not very colourful. More gold than anything. There you go. He'll go back as well. It's in a pretty bad state now, but if you know what that fly is, put it in the comments section please, because I have no idea. I'm going to have one last go in this pool. I was going to move upstream a little bit, but there's another fish risen underneath this overhanging tree, so I'm going to have another go here with exactly the same fly. Well, I don't mind catching this little lad at all, because I was beginning to think that only the stockies would go for this particular fly. But that's a lovely little wild fish. See all the red spots on him? That's a beautiful looking fish. He absolutely hammered that. There he goes. That's a great sign. This could possibly be a very good fly for this time of year. All right, there's loads more fish rising at the bottom of this pool, but I'm going to go upstream. There's a little shallow runner about 50 yards upstream that I'm going to give a try. I haven't seen anything rise in it, but it's worth running a fly through. All right, here's the little runner. Let's see if I can catch anything in here. Another little brownie. Even smaller, that one. There you go. Second cast. Let him go. On to the next one. This fly is absolutely pounding them. Another really nice little brownie and there's still more fish rising in this little runner. That's a fat fella, he was right under the bushes. Look at the belly on that. Right I'm gonna go to the next pool unless I see anything spectacular rise in the head of this pool and we'll see what happens there. The next pool is actually one where for the last three or four years I've never even seen a fish rise. But because there's so many fish in just these two pools that I've fished so far, there has to be something in this mystery pool. We'll soon find out. This is the same pool, but this time I'm going to fish it from the side. There's a fish on the other side of the river there that I just couldn't get to from down below because it's right underneath where the trees are overhanging. So hopefully from here I'll be able to cast across, let it drift down, hopefully keep mending the line so the fly doesn't drag. It's not the easiest of casts casting straight across a river because you do have to mess around with a line to keep it right. But really this is the only place that I can actually catch this fish from. I just happen to go in the top part of the pool before I put a line right across the river. He, he, he, he, he. That's got him straight away. The fish are going absolutely nuts for this fly. So really, in a way, I'm glad I lost that flicker spinner. There you go, another little brownie. Because I would have still been flogging on with that flicker spinner getting very frustrated. Whereas now it's a lot easier to cast with a light fly and it's absolutely producing the goods. Right it's either getting dark very very early or it's gonna absolutely chuck it down with rain. My camera is not waterproof and I've got a big fluffy microphone on the top as well so I'm gonna have to find some some cover underneath the trees I think. Luckily there's some nice big broadleaf trees above that pool that I was on about before, that mystery pool. So I'm gonna go up there. Let's see if I can do something I haven't done in the last three or four years and actually catch a fish in it. Well here's the mystery pool. I've got a lovely deep runner along the back there. Nice rapids coming in at the top and I've actually seen a fish rise just down this bottom end here. It's risen a few times so I'm gonna have a go for that one first. And then I might float the fly down this middle bit and then I think I'll have a go in the rapids. But really this should be absolutely jumping with fish. It's a beautiful pool. Ah! Thought I was just about to catch a fish in this pool and it got off. It was only about three inches long mind but it still would have counted. I've got one rising in the rapids above me so I'll have a go for that one. One mil to the oak tree. This is about 20 minutes later and I've been flogging on with this fly. Had about four or five fish on, all only about this long. Every single one's come off so I still haven't managed to catch a fish in this pool. I'm going to have one more go at the very, very top of the pool because there is one fish rising there. Hopefully I'll be able to catch that. I've never known a pool be so frustrating or really so devoid of decent fish because it's a really, really nice pool. Very deep. The rapids that come in at the top all seem to converge into a lovely feeding lane. But there's just never any decent fish in here. It's a really strange one. Finally caught a fish in this pool. And it's a little beauty. That's the beauty of the barbless hooks, they just come straight out. There he is again, lovely little fella, in his pool from hell. I'll just give you another quick look at that fly. Now, that is a dry fly, and again, if anybody can tell me what it is, I'll be much appreciated, because that is a really, really good fly for the Derwent in the height of summer, as I've just found out tonight. Really, the fish were just throwing themselves at it. Awesome. Well, it's starting to rain now, reasonably heavily. My gear isn't waterproof and it cost me quite a bit so I don't want to ruin it for the sake of a couple more fish. Hope you've enjoyed this video, I've certainly enjoyed it because really I've only fished one, two, three pools and caught quite a few fish. None of them were very big but some of those little brownies were absolutely beautiful. Now before I go I just want to say thank you to all those people who've sent me messages and also commented on the previous fishing videos asking when there's more fishing videos coming. Well, I've got quite a few hobbies, you know, there's the fishing, there's the shooting, there's mountain biking, metal detecting and I work beyond full time hours and I also have a family. I go to lots of clubs as well. Well, I take the kids to football to their friends and we do karate together and so on. So I've got a hell of a lot going on. I can't produce videos regularly on all of my hobbies. I wish I could, but that would mean giving up work and neglecting the family. Family, work are first and second, then it's hobbies, unfortunately, or fortunately. That's the right way to do things, but a lot of people don't see it that way. If you do want to watch more fishing videos, I would definitely advise you to check out Andy's Fishing. He's an awesome guy from Australia, and he produces... As far as I've seen, the best fishing videos on YouTube. He's very prolific, really nice guy. He replies to your comments. He takes suggestions on board if you want him to do a certain thing with regard to fishing. He goes bow hunting. He goes out on survival trips. He's a really, really great fella. So if you enjoy my videos, you'll love Andy's videos. He shoots them a lot better as well. There's underwater footage. Um, I'm, I'm I'm not going to say any more, but just check them out. Andy's Fishing. I'll put the link in the video description. So if you need a fishing fix that I can't provide, get it from Andy. Thanks very much for watching. See you next time. I'm not in a cave. Believe it or not, this is only two minutes after I finished filming on the river. The sky's gone black and it's absolutely chucking it down with rain. Now, I'm not going to risk knacking my gear, so I'm going to stay underneath this big oak tree until this dies down. Hopefully, I'll get home before it properly gets dark. See you next time.