#10 Trout Fishing in the Devil's Water

Hello there, welcome back. Today I'm fishing in an entirely different river. It's about six o'clock at night, the midges are just starting to bite. Just finished a local job so I'm going to be fishing a private stretch of river on the Devil's Water and Devil's Water runs into the River Tyne. It's what's classed as a spate river and it gets absolutely massive in the winter, it really does rage, hence the name Devil's Water. Because it's a tributary to the Tyne and it does have fish passes in, you do get salmon and sea trout coming up in the back end of the year. I think it's a little bit too early and the river's possibly a little bit too low to latch onto any sea trout or salmon, but I'm hoping in this very short hour to catch some wild brown trout. I'm going to be using my trusty Hardy Deluxe Smuggler rod which is seven foot it's a six piece rod with a little lightweight reel I think it's only like a two weight line or something it's seven foot rod two weight line really really small but perfect for little rivers like this I'm going with a little gingery dry fly that I still don't know the name of I haven't looked it up but it does work very very well on the Derwent I'm just hoping it works well on this river because it is a little bit different it's a lot rockier this river let's see it's pool just behind me there nice little runner coming into it haven't seen any fish rise but i think i'm going to go down below that pool and work my way up to it fishing upstream with the dry fly i don't like to fish downstream it's a little bit too easy bottom of the pool now and it's exceptionally quiet i have seen a little fish rising just Just below a big rock. It should be catchable, providing it's feeding on whatever I'm offering. Now the water in here is normally extremely clear, classed as kind of gin clear, it really is a pristine river, but over the last few days we've had quite a lot of rain and the river's developed like a peaty sort of a stain, it's kind of the colour of good whisky, so I think that might be affecting the way that it's going to fish. However, there is a couple of fish rising at the top end of this pool, so I'm going A little bit further, and have a go for them. Oh, that one was right at the extent of my casting. It took straight away, then it got off. I think there's a nicer pool a little bit further down, but I'm going to give this one a go, just to see what's in it. I haven't seen anything rise, but it's got a nice fast flow, and there's a bit of good cover underneath all those tree roots and overhanging banksides and everything. So there might be a fish or two in here, you never know. Nope, not today. On to the next one. Goes on for about 75 to 100 yards. And there's no where really to get in with a fly, it's absolutely awful to get into. With a spinning rod it would be no problem at all, there is a few fish rising. Don't know how many I'm going to be able to actually put a fly on though, dare say it won't be. See that a catwalk. This is a real little tiny fella. Look at the size of that. Tiny little brownie. Let's get him back. There you go, first from the devil's water. Break any records, but it's a start. I'm going to fish the pools back up, see if I can catch anything on the way back. Because one, whilst it's nice, is not exactly something to go home and tell the children about, but one fish. Downstream, with a wet fly, is a hell of a lot easier than fishing a dry fly. And this fella's even smaller than the last one. That's about four inches long at best. Well, I think there's about two more pools left, and then it's home time. This next pool is very long, but it's very, very slow. I don't like fishing long, slow pools, especially with a dry fly because you've got to present it absolutely perfectly right on the fish's nose for it to take, but we'll have a go. Let's have a go in the top of the pool. Loads of fish rising up there. I'm probably going to scare some little fish on my way up towards the top of the pool. Halfway up under some overhanging trees, I've just seen a good fish rise. And it's the first decent fish that I've seen rise, so I'm prepared to scare a few of these fellas in order to get to the big lad. Oh, that was a good fish. Micro trout. Well, I've had three fish, and I don't think one of them has been over five inches long. They're not exactly monsters in here, are they? Now, because it's quite difficult to cast upstream here with it being so calm and with it being a lot of overhanging trees, I think I'm going to change my tactics, I'm going to go to the very, very top of this pool and fish it down. Hopefully the fish will be looking up against all the rapids and everything at the top end of the pool. They won't be able to see me creeping quite close in order to drop the fly in and fish it back through them. Kind of hoping I'll latch on to that big lad that I saw rising in here as well, because that was a decent fish. Certainly bigger than five inches. This is even worse for casting. The trees are practically touching just at the top end of the pool. But I don't need to do much of a cast here. All I've got to do is put it in the current, move the rod to either the left or the right, and then start bringing it back. I'll be able to cover the whole width of the river quite easily doing that, and I'm sure I'll catch a fish. At least I hope I will. That didn't take long. It got off, though. I'm sure there's more where that one came from. Feast your eyes on that. Look at the colour on that. Absolutely beautiful. Lovely. Big old gob on him. Still a tiny fish by most people's standards, but from this river, on a day like today, I'm very pleased with that. He goes back to fight another day, and I think I'll give it one or two more casts in here, because there's definitely more fish rising in this pool. A monster fish just come out down there, looked like a big old sea trout, and I saw something moving around in here before, I thought it was just a little trout chasing each other, but that looked like a sea trout. I'm not going to get close to the camera with this one, but if you want to use a microscope, you can see it. That's got to be the smallest one so far, but absolutely tiny. They weren't huge by any stretch of the imagination, but they were incredibly beautiful fish. Prime examples of wild brown trout from a Spey river. I wish I'd caught one or two bigger ones, but just to catch anything in this really beautiful river was a bonus. I wouldn't have liked to have just come here and got eaten alive by midges. It's always good to catch one or two fish, and they obliged. Thank you very much to the fish. Thank you very much to everybody who watched, and I'll see you next time. Thanks for watching.