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Post by mspaddler on Dec 10, 2015 13:12:33 GMT
Had a couple of sessions on the Urban River Don earlier this week. I fished in two locations on Monday and again on Tuesday. Excellent fishing on the first session with close to double figures mostly on nymphs but see photo as one guy decided to take the Klink. Later that afternoon I fished in town for an hour and for the first time ever on this stretch did not get a fish to hand although I did see a rise where I have often seen one in the past and the fish looked at my dry but didn't stick, this is probably the same fish I have failed to catch on several previous attempts. That evening I attended a meeting of the Salmon & Trout Assn with an excellent talk from Paul Gaskell on long line nymphing tactics which clearly has applications in the Tenkara world. Paul is a passionate teacher, I hope to take at least some of his great advice, although I have to admit I'm more likely to stumble along doing it wrong! The following day I fished in front of the hotel hoping to erase the blank from the afternoon before, and I did! Firstly I thought I would look and see if the 'riser' would be interested in my Elk Hair Caddis and surprise surprise he took the offering with gusto. It turned out that my 'riser' was a very nice 14 inch trout, so no photo. A couple of small grayling followed and then I picked up what had to be the biggest grayling I have ever caught on this Downtown Sheffield stretch of the Don. No photo of that blighter either primarily because I didn't have a landing net and I couldn't get my hand around it to hold it out of the water so I lost it and the Utah Killer Bug it found so delicious. Poor knot. Finally I went further upstream, though still very Urban and spent an hour to pick up 2 decent size grayling and one WBT. You have to love these Urban rivers. The middle of town and I saw Grey Wagtails, a Kingfisher, a Heron and several Dippers.   |
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Post by adric on Dec 12, 2015 15:36:55 GMT
great you have some fishing. It is all floods and dirty water down here.
Richard
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Post by mspaddler on Feb 3, 2016 17:41:43 GMT
Its been tough sitting at home waiting for the rivers to fall and the bl&%$y wind to stop blowing at 40 mph. I took a chance on the Don last week I could see it had risen a bit but expected it to be OK so I headed for Sheffield. It was still rising and coloured and even worse than that the place was alive with anglers, 4 fly fishermen and a coarse angler in the middle of the week! I walked down the river ready to pop in at my usual spots and sure enough at each place someone else beat me to it. Any way I finally found one place where I'm mostly successful and second cast a grayling came to hand. I was about to cast again when one of the fly fishermen I saw early came into view. I then spent a frustrating 2 hours fishing without a nibble so decided to pack it in for the day. On the way back to the car I dropped in where the coarse angler had been and had 3 grayling in fairly rapid succession. So once again a journey well worth the drive although I'll probably avoid this area of the Don in the future.  |
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Post by dbl on Apr 27, 2016 18:51:13 GMT
Another morning well spent on the pretty tributary in the west end of the city only minutes from our host's house. It was a brief visit quite early last Sunday morning. One good WBT came out of the edge of a current flow near a busy footpath, but the highlight of the morning was bumping into an Italian guy who said something like, "Ah, you fish fly without reel, just like at home in Valsesiana!" Actually, it turned out he doesn't. He spins for trout and also goes after pike in the Sheffield canals with plugs. However, he was pleased to hear that I'm planning to go there next year to try those streams!
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Post by mspaddler on May 7, 2016 9:29:33 GMT
Yesterday was my first day RiverFly invertebrate sampling on the Urban River Don. As I can't be on the river every month my partner did the hard work, the 3 minute shuffle. We found what we were expecting but it is not the richest river in the country! However, the fish are there a plenty. Of course I'm not going to drive 120 mile round trip and not fish, so once all the information was recorded I fished within 100m of where we sampled. One nice OOS grayling and 4 WBT all but one on nymphs, not bad for less than 3 hours.   |
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Post by mspaddler on Jun 12, 2016 19:17:36 GMT
My last fishing sessions before I leave for the Summer was on the Urban River Don. My partner and I did the Riverfly sampling for June and then I fished for an hour. The sampling was interesting and different from our last outing we had Blue Wing Olives in abundance and a couple of Heptagenia, so we were somewhat pleased with ourselves. The river was low, below Summer levels, and clear when we sampled but by the time I got to fishing it started to colour and within an hour or so it was very coloured although it didn't seem to be rising much if at all. Fish count 2 Trout, 2 Grayling and 2 other trout which unhooked themselves at a distance! The fish mostly fell to small nymph patterns although one decent sized trout gobbled up the Caddis.   |
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Post by mspaddler on May 13, 2017 9:05:10 GMT
Once again it is time to bid the Urban Don adieu. Last Riverfly sampling went very well with a reasonable score for the area of the river we check. We then went off to fish for a couple of hours and both caught fish. Martyn did better on the numbers front but I did better on the size - it matters!  |
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Post by mspaddler on May 13, 2017 9:35:16 GMT
I fished about half a mile downstream of our sampling site, primarily to check out the area where a large weir had been removed sometime previously. Prior to the removal fishing was good below the weir but the water was dead above it for a couple of hundred metres. Now excellent moving pocket water and some really good deeper holding places, perfect for trout and grayling and of course to allow the fish to move upstream when spawning. This is what the weir looked like before removal, photo from Pete Turner EA fisheries officer: /photo/1 In the photo below part of the weir structure can be seen on the left and the much improved flow is obvious.  |
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Post by mspaddler on Dec 12, 2017 9:46:52 GMT
Just realized I didn't post my last Trout outing to one of the Don tributaries. I had to be in Sheffield to pick up a projector for a presentation I was to give to the Salmon and Trout Conservation Assn on fishing in the Driftless region of Wisconsin, USA. We agreed to meet at a convenient place for the handover and I don't drive 60 miles to Sheffield and not fish so it had to be near some good Tenkara water. And so it proved. I had a fabulous couple of hours with more than a dozen fish to hand, all wild and some quite decent size. Once again proving that you don't have to belong to a fancy club to find excellent fishing.  |
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Post by mspaddler on Feb 13, 2018 9:09:36 GMT
I'm now packing to return to the USA for a couple of months. Just thought I'd tell the tale of 3 short sessions on the Urban River Don. The first Sunday in the month is (nearly) always SPRITE working party day. On this occasion we helped to put up about a dozen bird boxes on trees by the river. After watching the younger members climbing the ladders my Riverfly partner and I went upstream and carried out our February sampling, river was in good health with a significant increase in Baetis present. Of course if I'm going to fish after these sessions and had a great couple of hours with 13 Grayling to hand and of course a few lost. Interestingly no trout at all. My partner didn't do quite as well but then I had picked the most productive spots to fish! Monday, was the South Yorkshire Salmon & Trout meeting with a great presentation from Paul Gaskell. I usually stay downtown Sheffield for these meetings as I don't care much for driving back to York at 10.30 at night. As a result a little fishing took place in front of the hotel for about an hour before it got dark and 5 nice Grayling succumbed to my charms? The next morning I returned to the site of my success on Sunday and although the 3 hours weren't as productive as previously another 5 Grayling came to hand including two probably over 1 1/2 lbs. The trouble with the larger Grayling I just can't hold them and take a photo at the same time and I didn't take my landing net with me.  . I look forward to April when the Trout will be lining up to be caught by me! |
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Post by mspaddler on Feb 13, 2018 9:10:49 GMT
The Urban River Don in downtown Sheffield.  |
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Post by mspaddler on Feb 13, 2018 9:12:05 GMT
One of the prettiest (not the largest) from the Urban Don.  |
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Post by captainpurple on Mar 12, 2018 15:30:14 GMT
"Once again proving that you don't have to belong to a fancy club to find excellent fishing"
I totally agree with the sentiment of this statement. I have been interested in fishing smaller rivers and streams for ages. There are a good few Rivers and Streams near me and they don't really get that much fishing pressure. I remember talking to a fellow angler one day about fishing a wee river close to my house and he said "You only get finger size fish in there". I caught 2 of the best trout I have seen from that river let alone caught and did it on a T rod. Funnily enough - the next day he was down at the bit where I had been fishing interestingly enough.
Great pictures and great report. Hopefully the trout will be lining up waiting on your fly in April.
Cheers,
CP
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