Fly fishing diary: April 2021

We're back...

What with COVID, flooded rivers, lockdowns, and a host of other things going on over the past few months, we barely did any fishing, apart from a single trip to the Dee between lockdowns in December.

We don't really have any fly fishing venues near enough to class as "local", so we stayed safe at home instead. When restrictions were eventually relaxed, the weather was grim and the Dee was in flood, but we went anyway.

With the river running too fast and high to make fly fishing an easy or safe option, we opted to trot for the grayling instead. This was excellent fun and we had some superb action, with George even hooking and losing a fantastic salmon! Then, the restrictions came again and we were without fishing for months...

George did receive a nice gift in the post from the England Youth Fly Fishing Team, a new cap from his youth qualifiers. With the Internationals now postponed for another year, these Internationals are now set to contain very few youths but lots of young men...

Monday April 5th, 2021

The never-ending lockdown, and the lack of opportunity for local fly fishing, meant that today was our first fishing trip of 2021 and the first time we'd been out since October. The weather had been warm and spring-like for a few days, but had taken a turn for the worse today, with a strong icy wind blowing across Ellerdine Lakes.

We were frozen before we'd even got to the bank and the biting wind was going right through us today, but it was still absolutely delightful to be back out in the countryside after so long locked up at home. The Lakes reopened last week and had taken the usual post-opening hammering, so this combined with the change in weather meant the fishing was challenging.

We were both using our usual two-rod set up - one with a floater and one with an intermediate, with various flies being used, from apaches, to cormorants, buzzers, and blobs. George and I both missed a fish each early on when stalking the margins on Cranymoor, but it took us until after breakfast to catch the first fish.

George managed to find a nice three pound plus rainbow under the bridge on Marsh, which he winked out with a squirmy wormy. It went on a tremendous run along the lake and took him into the reeds, but he still managed to land it. Shortly afterwards a second fish did the same thing and he failed to keep it out...

I had several plucks and pulls throughout the day, and lost a fish on Meadow Lake, before finally ending the session with a small rainbow from Marsh. Not the biggest fish I've caught but definitely very welcome on a cold day, and it prevented me starting the season on a blank.