The Ure has been pestered with constant flooding over the last month or two, sadly today was no different. Dave had made the long trip up North to be met by a moody Ure.
I'd monitored the river all week and pre-warned Dave that we were literally in the hands of the god's, as long as we had some clarity we had a chance of catching a fish. From 1pm Saturday afternoon till 8am Sunday morning the Ure had dropped by only 3inches ! it wasn't enough, however the clarity was medium to fair.
Met with Dave at 8.15am and we decided to go ahead and take on the Ure. I knew we'd have difficulty accessing many parts of the beat due to the high water level but i also knew how much Dave wanted to get a line out on the Ure - he'd travelled a fair old way. the the odd's were stacked against us but i didn't want to let him down.
We had half an hour in a 'friendly zone' just to grab a feel of waters flow and settle into the methods we planned to use up river.
It was sickening to walk past a few of my favoured spots but safety comes first, the strength of flow was simply to dangerous.
Dave worked a number of good runs switching rigs to cover the depth and flow changes - control and correct tension needed were difficult to maintain and Dave did a good job prospecting. He started close in and worked out, covering the water well, plenty of bottom tugs so we were in the 'playing field' so to speak. Nothing came from these runs so we leap frogged up to a long ( reasonably accessible ) run and decided to commit a good deal of time to this area. The fishing proved to be very hard going ! would we find a fish ? they could be bluddy anywhere, especially with the amount of extra water in. I think Dave must have been thinking the worst by now, i was. Three and a half hours without a touch !..... nothing...! when suddenly Dave's sighter on the czech rig harked down hard - Dave lifted into a big Ure grayling and suddenly all hell broke loose, hooked in 3ft of pacey water the fish came straight up thrashing like a b...... !, Dave tried to steer it into the slack but the fish was strong and held hard - ping ! I think i chucked the spare rod into bank side bushes at this point lol.
Not to long after Dave managed to land a small but very welcome Ure grayling - the greedy begger took a sacrificial fly, nevertheless it was a grayling in the net on a hard day.
We decided to work back down the beat we had just ruffled up ( wink ) and this was the result...... a wild Ure fish...look at that paddle
The deep cold water began to chill the bone so we made the decision to relocate to the river Skell for the afternoon session.
Dave sourced out a few good grayling along with the odd oosb to Trio and double nymphing methods, here's some pics.
All in all a hard day today, however we both enjoyed the challenges of the Ure and Skell and came away happy !
Well done Dave.
Chrissy's Quest.... Winter Grayling on the River Ure.
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