Local burn revisited.

Late last week Jake and I headed back to the small burn he fished last Monday armed with our LRF gear for a short session of upstream lure fishing for the resident trout. I also took along my brook rod as I thought I may get the opportunity to do a spot of fly fishing, or should I say practice my casting. We parked the car, climbed down the bank and entered the burn. We began working our way up the river and Jake having fished it the day before very kindly allowed me to fish most of the pools and runs, offering advice as we went. With little sign of any trout though, me constantly getting my jighead caught in the rocks and then spooking the fish as I moved upstream to free it, I was glad when we then approached a nice weir pool.

After sneaking up to it, seeing plenty of small fish rising and having a few casts towards them with the lures but with no reward, we decided it was time to try my fly rod. I've not been fly fishing for long at all and my casting isn't very good yet. Trying to keep low so as not to spook the fish I kept catching my fly on the vegetation behind me. Jake offered some advice and after a while I finally managed to get a fish to show some interest, slashing at the nymph under the surface. Casting practice continued with Jake removing the fly from the long grass behind me once or twice before I finally got it where the fish were. I then worked on stripping line at the right speed to keep the nymph moving through the current and must have cracked it when a small trout took my fly and was hooked. I was very pleased and was so grateful to Jake for his great tuition!

My second small fish on a weighted nymph in a week.

Jake then had a go with my brook rod and it didn't take him long at all to get himself a small trout. A little escapee rainbow trout from the fish farm further down stream. My turn again and after some more hit and miss casting I hooked a second small trout. Quickly retrieved and landed, it was another small rainbow trout. I was over the moon and found the whole thing quite hilarious as I've never seen rainbow trout so small before.

My 9th freshwater species on lures of 2012.

We carried on for a while longer before heading back down stream. Jake fished as he went but had no luck so we headed home. A fun couple of hours and I'm looking forward to future trips there and hopefully hooking a bigger trout on my brook rod soon.

Tight lines, Hutch.