Rivers Allen and Irthing

[chriscreeler]

After a series of poorish catches I have had two good days this week.

On Monday I fished up among the clouds on the river above Allendale Town, and caught 24 little trout up to 10 inches. They were 'mad on' at one stage and I must got about half of them from one pool, hardly having to move my feet.

Yesterday I went to the Irthing at Willowford caught 15 slightly larger, the biggest, an 11 incher is pictured below. The fish came well to the spider on both days. On Monday it was a size 14, grey hackle with peacock herl body and copper twist, and yesterday, a 16 partridge and orange with a hare's ear thorax, that did the trick.

It was fairly warm and sunny yesterday and there were some olive uprights on the water and hawthorn flies around the hedgerows and bushes, the first I have seen this year.

[orangeotter]

What a great couple of sessions, sounds like good water.

I saw Hawthornes for the first time yesterday, sometime see none in a season but all things pointing to a good season for us.

Do you use a single wet ? I use 4 with conventional tackle but I'm trying to be a bit traditional with T.

Cheers

[custheyder]

Sounds like you had a lot of fun. I've not seen any Hawthorns here yet.... evil looking things, but the fish like'em.

Perhaps I'll get to tie a few more flies this weekend and get out fishing at some point over the bank holiday.

orangeotter... I still can't get my head around 4 flies on a cast. Perhaps it's just the waters over here I fish where 2 is adequate and 1 to target individuals.

Cust.

[leckie]

chriscreeler,

Nice report and a lovely looking trout as well....even the small trout are great fun on the T rod....well done and keep the reports coming...I enjoy reading them

tight lines

Alex

[orangeotter]

Cust' - I would only use 4 on medium/large rivers, generally across & down. It's necessary to spey cast or you get bad tangles.

I'm big on Clyde style and as you know, more than 4 were traditionally used. I've never seen anyone else using 4 but I feel restricted with 3.

Cheers.

[chriscreeler]

On the Allen I started off with two flies, a weighted nymph as stretcher with a spider above it, but as I was getting most on the spider and the river is pretty small where I was fishing, I changed to just one.

On the Irthing there being a downstream wind, I had it in my mind I would fish a team of three or four flies across and down, but when I arrived there was much less water in the river than I had expected, so I stuck with two and battled against the wind, which was mostly faily light, as far as I could.

I'm very keen on the Clyde style myself. It's a very satisfying and often effective way of tackling the broad streams of a biggish river, or indeed a smaller one when there's a 'good fishing water'. The little fibre winged dub flies that are/were often used are very good too I think.

Chris,