I fished at bolton abbey on the wharfe yeaterday, as the title suggests it was my first taste of fishing a spate river....
I was fishing as a guest of my brother in law who has a rod on the river there, we fished starting fron the viaduct that indicated the end of day ticket fishing up stream ththough bardens bridge and the strid up to the boundary of the fishery...
We arrived at 9 am to find only one other car in the car park, there was a nip in the air but you could tell that the sun was oing to burn through the thin veil of cloud later. Nigel informrd me that the river was up a little but it was running very clear, though for a chalkstream angler like me the peat stained water suggested the fishiing was going to be hard...
I suited up with waders etc and headed to the bank, there was nothing moving on the surface, i asked Nigel for the benefit of his years of fishing the wharfe and suggested tactics.. the answer was what i has expecter
"spiders lad, what else " i have never really fished spiders before but have tied plenty and have read plenty, watched oli edwards etc.. i set up an 18 foor leader with a snipe and purple on point and a waterhen bloa on a dropper. we fished up the pool .... nothing... i had noticed a bit of insect action but not what you would call a hatch, we walked back to the car and had a cup of tea, Nigel suggested moving upstream to a stretch where the trout farm outlet joins the river, he said he had lifted some good fish there.
There was a steady but moderate hatch of large olives coming off now.. Nigel suggested i crossed the viaduct and waded out to a boulder close to the oppisite bank then cast in tight to the bank with an elk emerger. nothing... Just as i decided to leave that bank and move to another bit of river nigel took a trout of about a pound on a greenwells spider.
I came back across the river and picked our way up stream through various pools glides and riffles, all looking emenently fishy and nothing showing, there were olives drifting downstream lier the cutty sark totally unmolested,
the fly activity was at a point that if i had been at home on the itchen the water would have been boiling. we walked down stream to the strid, made a jump across below the strid and were walkingalong th footmat around 40 feet above the river... then i saw it... a rise... i stopped and looked there seemed to be a good few fish moving just below the surface. i told Nigel i was gonna climb down to try my luck, he told me he was gonna go down to the end of the section to the bend and try there.
I slid down toward the riverand notice a large flat boulder in the water that would make a good perch.. i sat on the rock and watched for a few minutes , there was a good deal of activity just subsurface.. i decided to return to the spiders, i looked in my fly box and settled on a little dark watchett on dropper and a brown owl on point. as the sun was on my back and high in the sky now i remained sitting so i didnt cast a shadow and made my first cast upstream as the leader drifted over an area i had seen a boil earlier, i saw a swirl on the surface, i lifted and connected with my first wharfe trout, as black as the fireback, about a pound in weight and taken on the dark watchett. As i was un hooking it i heard this little voice from above me shout
"Has it got spots on it mister ???"
"It has " i replied
"That means its a trout" the little lad of maybe 7 years old shouted back
"are you gunna bash it and cook it" he asked me, i told him i was going to let the fish go
"Me dad knocks em on t'ed and fries em, there my fave" he shouted then skipped off
i remained fishing on the rock for another 30 minutes and brought 3 more fish to hand, all between 1 and 1.5 pounds. i cast across the pool and saw the tell tale swirl at the surface , and lifted into a good fish which snapped me taking the dropper and my only dark watchett with it... i replaced it with a snipe and purple, however i think the fight with the big fish had disturbed things too much. I made my way back up the rocks and went and found Nigel who had also had a productive half hour, he had lifted 2 browns and a rainbow, an escapee from the trout farm, which he said he should have sent to jesus, but with so many little children about he didnt have the heart to upset them by bashing it. we fished on to the boundary of the fishery and saw no evidence of fish
we decided that we would head up river back towards the car, i could not resist another quick play on my magic little pool, i managed to lift one more fish on a snipe and blue and lost another two to poor line management and barbless hooks
A great day all round in some stunning countryside, i saw a couple of kingfishers, yellow wagtails a dipper, the ubiquitous heron and loads of ducks
so in my opinion is it harder fishing than the chalkstreams....
No...
It was different and required different tactics, the unfamiliarity was obviously a hurdle to overcome but it was a very enjoyable day... i will be back
My first outing on a spate river
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