Ok this report is about a beck that is a little bigger than a small stream but it seems the right place to tell the story.
I was on the coast in North Yorkshire over the last weekend of the season so I arranged to get a day ticket to fish a local beck on the Saturday morning. The advice was to park at the lowest bridge, walk down to the beck to the beach and fish back up.
I only had a few hours free so I set off at a brisk pace down a rough wooded path to get there. Most of the way the path was set back from the beck and looking down through the trees I could see the occasional small trout. A few trout were rising, usually along side of the occasional boulder on the slow sections. Eventually bramble covered slopes and my breathable waders blocked further progress. Reluctantly I dropped down to wade the beck to get to the top of the final pool. A few small wildies darted away as I crossed a narrow stretch where a landslide had pinched the beck.
This arrival was far from satisfactory. My dilema was that I couldn't get to the downstream end of the pool without scaring any more fish. I would have to start fishing the pool from the top. I edged back from the pool and perched on a small boulder against a bramble covered bank to tackle up.
This T shirt weather was glorious. Sitting facing the sun I could just about hear the waves and smell the salty air from the beach which was out of sight just around a corner.
At the final stage of tackling up things went wrong. My leader had got tangled up in a plant seed head and I had to scrap it. Cursing for not having a spare I dug out some spools to build a new one. This took a little while, especially when rushing I snipped off the wrong leg on one section.
From the cliff top opposite a couple were watching while their kids ran around shouting further up the valley. No doubt another angler out with his family wishing he was fishing. I think a lot of us know that feeling.
Nearing the end of making the leader I looked up and made out the barely visible shape of a reasonable sized fish swimming slowly up to the head of the pool. He stationed himself in a feeding position in the faster water a couple of feet downstream from where the riffle entered. Maybe he'd been when I arrived and scooted off and was only now returning?
Unfortunately I was directly parallel with the trout and in danger of being noticed if I moved. Could I cover him without spooking him?
I put on the fly tied up specially for the beck. I had read on Coasty's
'brooks and becks' blog that he favoured a peacock bodied red tag. I didn't have any decent brown hackle feathers so I had made up some red tag's supported by klink style wing.
I figured that if I was to have a chance with this trout I had to cast from where I was sitting. I was about 6 foot back from the edge of the pool behind some low boulders and then about 8 foot out for the trout. With the bramble bank behind me I reckoned I could just about make a sort of roll cast sort of flick to get the fly onto the water.
My first attempt was short but the rod flick hadn't alarmed the fish. My second attempt was better dumping the fly 4 feet above the trout but with a complete mess of slack leader and tippet all around the fly. The fly drifted past a foot away from the trout and with no reaction. My next cast looked more hopeful. Plenty of slack and fly on a good line. Anticipation of a take but disappointment as the trout ignored the fly. The fly drifted past but when it had gone a good foot past the trout turned lazily and swam after the fly - which was about to start to drag, and took it.
I lifted into the fish and pulling it off balance I could see it was a beautifully spotted trout. In the clear water and bright conditions I could see the red of his gills as he shook his head trying to clear the hook. He didn't seem to overly panic about being attached to the line. No jumping or diving, just swimming firmly around the pool resisting the pull of the line. I crept closer to the water and as I reached back for my net he slipped the hook.
What happened next really surprised me. Rather than slinking off into the shadows on the bottom of the pool he just turned back up stream and swam back up to resume his station as if nothing had happened.
I should have left the fish to settle and try him again later but as I only had a couple of hours I thought I'd try him again anyway. Well of course he didn't take but he wasn't fazed by the passing fly. It wasn't until I started to move further down the pool that he took fright and darted off into the rocky shadows.
This made me wonder if he wasn't really aware what had happened when I hooked him? Or maybe he was a stocked fish that didn't have the same instincts as a wildie?
Creeping a little further down the pool, still kneeling a few feet back from the water, I made a cast across the pool to land in still water alongside a sheer rock wall. I was a little distracted in this new position. I could now see down to the bottom of the pool where it met a bank of shingle on the beach. A Dad and his son were happily lobbing rocks into the far end of the pool. On a footbridge above the pair, some early morning beach walkers had stopped to watch. I looked back to where my fly had been and there was just a small ring of water and no fly.
I retrieved the fly and cast again and this time watched it carefully. A confident rise and I tightened into a similar sized fish. This time the hook held, the hook well set in the roof of mouth.
Thinking about it I realised that If I hadn't had the tangle and had spent the twenty minutes sitting by the pool blending into the background and slowing down I probably wouldn't have had the same success.
With a feeling of mission accomplished I worked back up the beck picking up a succession of the much smaller wildies from a variety of pools, glides and pocket water.
A most enjoyable morning at the sea side and a great way to end the season.
Nigel
The Sea Pool
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