New Members First Season

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Stephen Blood joined the club this year, getting back into fly fishing in the last couple of years. He keeps a blog of his trips which can be viewed here  Below is a review of how his first season on the river has gone:

Well with the season at around the half way mark I thought it would be a good time to do a half season review to see just how my first full season back on the river is going.

 

 To be fair the season started pretty badly in December in to January, the really cold weather and high water hampered my start, well thats my excuse, leaving me looking at three straight blanks and not even a bit to be had… I was starting to think I had lost my touch.

 As the weather warmed and we got in to March though the fish started to come , Olive nymphs and GRHE doing the job for me on most days with the Partridge and Orange also fairing quite well.

I wont forget the shock of hooking in to my first stock fish of just under 2lb , not knowing there were fish of that size in the river, the shock was unbelievable as my rod bent down towards the water and battle commenced!!

A nice surprise

Only a couple of evening , night time sessions were had this year, one catching loads of fish and ending with a nice 14” wild brownie of just under 1½ lb and another just a week or so ago where I got in to a couple of nice brownies just in the 10” range maybe about ½lb (on a good day!)

I have been surprised by the amount of small grayling in the water all less than 5” hopefully this will bode well as the temperature drops and I can get in to some of their big brother and sisters?

 It has also surprised me just how few other anglers I have seen on the water, I bumped in to a few at the back end of last year up at Rowlands Gil but haven’t seen a single one on the water around Winlaton Mill all season, Is River Derwent one of the North East’s best kept secrets?

The beautiful River Derwent

 So as we are now in to early September it has been a cracking start for me , really enjoyed my fishing , caught fish every time out of varying size, got a good few surprises in the size of some of the fish landed.

 Hopefully between now and March will be in a similar vein!