Jon has been trying to arrange a day on the river Wye since I first started raving about its population of wild Rainbow Trout a few years ago. Finally, after a couple of false starts we were on the hallowed banks.

 

The weather had been decidedly ’iffy’ recently so we were both pleasantly surprised by the conditions. That warm but fresh morning haze that often precedes a lovely day on the river prompted us to gamble on leaving our jackets in the car. It was a good decision.

 

We started out fishing a nymph but with the odd fish rising, Jon was keen to focus on fishing a dry fly. We missed a couple early on but eventually we got one to the net, a huge brownie that sipped a small Klinkhammer off the surface with barely a disturbance.

We had some excellent dry fly sport at times but whilst the Brown Trout seemed very active on the surface, the only Rainbow Trout we saw were caught by the chap on the opposite bank who was trawling the riverbed with a Copper John nymph.

 

Even though our nymph rod was set up, Jon preferred the dry fly approach and by the end of the day, his dry fly presentation had improved immensely, rising if not always landing several fish over the course of the day.

Whilst I was a little disappointed that Jon didn’t get a Wye Rainbow, he was fairly philosophical and consoled himself by making plans to fish it again as soon as possible.

That’s the spirit!