I’m conscious that my readers (both of them) will only tolerate so much drivel.
For that reason I try to only post the aspects of my fishing related exploits that might be of interest so sometimes there’s a lot to post and other times, nothing.

I’ve delivered a lot of casting lessons recently and whilst they don’t usually themselves warrant a blog post, depending on their location and duration, I can sometimes get a couple of hours on a river before or after.

 

Wednesday presented such an opportunity. Gary and I were lucky to dodge the rain during our lesson but shortly after packing up, the heavens opened. This presented me with a couple of options. I could:-

a) Go fishing and get wet (I’d forgotten my jacket) or
b) Head straight home.
Suffice it to say, I went fishing.

When I got to the river, the car park was completely empty and there wasn’t a person or dog in sight! The wisdom of my decision was further underlined when my first few casts produced a couple of good, strong Trout and another huge river Goyt Grayling…but more about him later.

 

After 10 mins my shirt sleeves were clinging to me and my glasses had steamed up… and it was glorious! The fish were feeding hard and I was catching plenty. I made my way up the river catching steadily until I got to the last pool of the day.

 

It had been raining non stop for a few hours now and as the temperature was also dropping, it was becoming uncomfortable. In addition, the last pool had only produced one small Trout. “I’ll give it 5 more minutes” I told myself as I took some more weary, rain sodden steps upstream against the steadily increasing current of the rising river.

 

I often comment on whether or not a fish is ‘fully finned’ and there’s good reason.
Stocked fish often have small, deformed fins as a result of being bred in tanks and living in close proximity to each other. The Pectoral fins get ‘rubbed down’ with the constant bustling and barging and the fish often nip at each other’s tails which also causes damage. The result is fairly inefficient, ragged or ‘nubby’ fins that make them slightly less efficient swimmers.

Wild fish on the other hand have no such issues. Their fully formed fins make it easy for them to cope with the rivers ever changing conditions and allow them to better resist our efforts to drag them into our nets. This is just one of the reasons that wild fish ‘fight’ better than ‘stockies’.

So when I hooked this big, wild, fully finned Trout in the fast water, it resulted in a battle of truly epic proportions. He was of course safely returned and swam away strongly but had I listened to ‘my little voice’ and left 5 minutes earlier, our paths would never have crossed.

So, the moral of the story is, ALWAYS stay 5 more minutes.
If your partners complain, just show them this post or refer them to me and I’ll explain!