Sneaky Pie

I went to that special place again high up on the Ribble. With an early dart from work I was down the river for a touch of dry fly and a cheeky pork pie by 5ish.

The trout weren’t massive but they were super tricky to get close enough to trick on dries in such slow and skinny water. They fight like crazy in the shallow water and I lost a real good fish as the light was fading. It went full airborne escape mode and shaking the hook on the 5th leap. Funny how It still hurts even when you’ve had an otherwise great evening.

On a more positive note and more for my own records. These past few weeks have been a revelation on dry fly. Actually stalking rising fish in clear water, throwing different flies and finally getting a reaction (mostly by going smaller)

Its genuinely taken 3 or 4 years to get here and I’m no longer relying on kind of dirty new Zealand style indicator nymph tactics to catch a few fish. There’s been a reduction in the amount of neon fluff deployed on the river but it still lives on in my scruffy dry flies.

This is the good stuff!