I'm only going to have the time to fish the morning on my local chalk stream. So before it wams up and any hatches really kick in.

What are the best tactics in these circumstances?

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You can only fish for so long before you have to throw a stick of dynamite in the river.

The duo worked well for me on the deeper pools (I'm assuming we're fishing the same stream) but put the dry on a short dropper.

Emerger patterns seem be work, f-fly, small dark klinks. There seems to be plenty of fly life regardless. Let me know how you get on.

get up early is my top tip.

I've been to my river at 5am and found someone else already there...

Morning fishing best for that hour or two after dawn so be prepared to have breakfast after and be there from four.

You'll be surprised what's hatching at that time in the morning. There is a pronounced spike in nymph activity as they tend to drift the hour before and hour after dark. Well, according to the entomology class I went on last week they do anyway.

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ugly casts catch fish too
http://nadder-diary.net

Thanks.

Sunrider : Fished from the ornamental bridge up to the trees. Only saw about 3 fish rise. Plenty of buzzers around when I got there about 9:15 but no significant numbers of anything else except Damsels in amongst the reeds. Didn't manage to bother anything with emergers or nymphs. But for the last 20min I tried a decent sized dry olive which raised one fish ... which I missed.
I think some of my casting was a little heavy handed as I saw several fish (9"-12") heading for the sea at a rate of knotts after one or two sloppy casts.
Need more practice!

Malcolm : Not sure I'm quite that dedicated.

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You can only fish for so long before you have to throw a stick of dynamite in the river.