Hi everyone,

I've not had much experience fishing rivers/streams and I've just started fishing a new stretch of a small stream near me, the stretch in question is a series of slow runs with pools on the bends, all upstream of a weir.

I've had one session on there and had a small escapee rainbow on an upstream nymph, there's also supposed to be brownies and grayling in the stretch. There weren't many fish rising, so I assumed they would be mostly feeding on nymphs. The water is also quite cloudy, with only a few inches of visibility and lots of overhanging trees.

How should I go about approaching this stream? I'd love to catch a grayling, so any tips are much appreciated! Will Czech nymphing work in the slower water?

Thanks,

yaffle

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"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing." - Oscar Wilde

In slow water on small streams I've often found it's worth fishing likely spots with a dry fly even when there's no fish rising - you'll be surprised how many fish you'll pull up that you didn't even know were there. In slow water I'd stick to standard nymph patterns as I think czechs would spend more time stuck to the bottom than actually fishing.

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You could try searching the water with the duo method, maybe a Klinkhammer indicator on a short dropper and 20/24 inches below that for the coloured water maybe a pink / red bead nymph.

Alarm bells were ringing in my head as soon as I read the OP. No (visible) fish activity, slow runs, cloudy water with low visibility. Not your classic trout or grayling habitat. I would imagine that the stream would be low in oxygen, and possibly suffering pollution. Only escapee rainbow trout would tolerate such conditions. Perhaps it could be an altogether different stream after a good wash out.

Thanks for the tips chaps, I'll give them a go

I've seen brownies in other stretches of the same stream, it's fairly normal elsewhere, just the section above the weir is slow, surrounded by reeds, dark and deep...hoping there might be a monster in there... :P

I should be able to fish a section below the weir too, I just need to clarify where the access points are and where I'm allowed to fish as I'm new to the club. Below the weir it's clear, fast and shallow, so a completely different story!

Yaffle

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"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing." - Oscar Wilde

Give it a go, I took a large grayling from something similar, earlier this year. Will be interested to hear how you get on.

Thanks VGB,

I'm going again this evening so I'll report back! I thought there might be a possibility of a few big fish in there with it being so deep compared to the rest of the stream, so to hear of you having a big grayling from somewhere similar gives me confidence.

Yaffle

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"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing." - Oscar Wilde

Yeah Yaffle down stream of weirs offer much beter habitat for both the trout and the under water invertabrates they love , also the weir pool itself would offer the best nymphing water czech style especially , careful though could be deeper then you anticipate. PJ

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Just got back from 2 hours down there, I caught 6 rainbows, 5 above the weir and one in the weir pool on a grayling bug. Next time I'll pay more attention to the weir pool and hopefully I'll be able to pick up a brownie. Any tips for fishing weir pools?

Here's one of the larger rainbows:



Yaffle

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"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing." - Oscar Wilde

Good effort Yaffle. I think there was a recent thread on fishing weir pools, would be worth a search. If the usual stocked fish argument kicks off, ignore it, you can only catch what is in there.