April Trout On The Nymph

This was a first visit, of the new trout season, to this delightful little Shropshire river. Not having fished it as early as April before, i was not sure if the river was
ready to give up its slippery treasures.

The best way to fish these small tree lined waterways, is to use a 6 ft to 7 ft, rod with either a dry fly or the so called 'klink & dink'. On this occasion the later was chosen as no rising fish were seen during my walk down stream.

It turned out to be a very fruitful afternoon, with some very nice trout taking the size 14 pheasant tail nymph, not one fish rising to the Klinkhammer. Although a warm day, with a few olives hatching, no trout were seen rising to these natural flies.

A lot of the fish were wearing the slightly silvery washed out look, commonly seen at this time of the year, but some showed beautiful markings and colours that are a feature of this and other rivers in Shropshire.

The faster water seemed to contain the most feeding fish, some riffles yielding three to five good trout. In late May/early June , it is the slow deep pools that

reveal big hungry trout sipping struggling mayflies off the surface.

By regularly fly fishing the smaller river, there is no doubt that a p/t nymph fished under an emerger type pattern, is by far the most reliable method of catching wily, wild trout. However the ultimate is to cast to rising fish using a dry fly and this is an event we fly fishers look forward to.

I will long remember this particular afternoons fly fishing, that's for sure!

Wood Anemones carpet the wooded, mossy covered sandstone slopes.