Sunday was spent exploring another under-fished CADAC water. My one previous visit revealed that it was a 10 minute walk from the car and that once there, there wasn’t an awful lot of water to go at. It also revealed however that this short beat could be excellent for dry fly fishing.

 

My two compadres today are themselves very accomplished dry fly fishermen and so we were very hopeful as we picked our way along the bank and over the many stiles to arrive at dry fly Valhalla.
The weathermen had forecast a change from the searing heat of the past few days and told us to expect cloud cover and possibly some rain too. It sounded perfect!

 

We kitted up to the very welcome sight of flies everywhere. They were dancing in the air and dipping into the water but the fish just weren’t interested. We saw only a couple of rising fish all morning despite one of the best olive hatches I’ve ever seen on the Dee. So, what was going on?
I’ve read about and witnessed this phenomenon before. It appears that fish don’t like change. It is thought that a pronounced change in barometric pressure affects the fishes swim bladder and this somehow upsets their routine and as a result, they don’t feed.

 

A few fish were caught and one special moment was marked by John matching the hatch to perfection with his version of an Iron Blue Dun. The result was a cracking Grayling that had taken two or three flies off the surface but was by no means taking advantage of the clouds of flies available.
A change of venue was suggested so we headed to a spot with more features and more flow and thankfully, a little more sport.

 

I decided once home, to finally research the mechanics of this weather change phenomenon and set about scouring my books, magazines and the internet for a definitive explanation.
I even put the question up on my Facebook page to see if any of my fellow instructors, magazine contributors and fly fishing luminaries could shed any light on it. I received many extremely vague and cobbled-together theories from people who should know better but my heart fluttered when I got a response from a friend who is the current manager of the England mens rivers team.
In his own, inimitable wordy way he wrote…”It happens, and, finally, that is good enough, usually”.

 

So maybe he’s right. We can’t know the answer to everything but maybe it’s enough just to know that it happens.