Drying Up + Quiz

I decided to get up at daft'o'clock this morning and wander down to Beat 2a from Share Farm, and I had trouble finding the river. It was down to 16cm this morning which was as low as I've ever seen it.

As the river was so low, I tried to cheer it up by fishing dry flies when there was nothing rising, though I was surprised twice by violent rises out of nowhere just as I was lifting off the fly to re-cast. I missed them of course, but by being patient, I did spot a few rises here and there, and I eventually landed a nice Rainbow on a small sedge, and lost a few more.

I'd been advised to look for the fast water and try a small tungsten nymph there, but because the level was so low, and Southern Water had clearly switched off the compensatory flow at the Smallbridge Pumping station, there was almost no flow on most of the river. I did find one spot however where there was a bit of a current, at the head of the deep pool below the Flat Stones in Field 3.

I tried a weighted March Brown Spider there and landed a nice Brown, then moved upstream in search of some rises. I did find and hook a really annoyed fish up in field 2 on a dry sedge again, and he tore up and down two pools, under rocks and generally tried very hard to get away, eventually snapping a 4.5x tippet, and I never even saw it properly.

On the way back, I picked up another rainbow below the flat stones on a small quill nymph, by which time it was getting a bit warm.

The point is that you can find fish even when the conditions are not favourable but you need to be flexible in terms of when, where, and what techniques and flies you use. I reckon that makes it all more interesting anyway, and it's always good to learn new stuff.

And now, the quiz:

I arrived at the gate to the Trottenden (2a) Beat, to find the padlock nicely fastened, but something didn't look quite right. See if you can spot the correct way to secure the gate at Trottenden.

Easily done I'm sure, but please don't make it too easy for 'non-members' to enjoy our lovely fishing.

Tight Lines

PeterB