Fly fishing at Pennine Fishery

I love my trips up to Pennine Fishery near Rochdale. I come over all giddy about the prospect of hooking huge rainbows. If you are a "purist" or wild trout fisherman then look away! Pennine is all about trying to catch huge rainbows on the fly. By huge I mean over 20lb. There are currently fish in there pushing 30lb and the minimum size for stocking is about 3 lbs.

Despite the rain at the weekend I had a good day landing about 7 fish and probably loosing about as many. I hooked a big fish on my second cast of the day but lost it near the bank after trying to bully it to the net! Best method of the day was dry fly or mini muddler however the biggies tend to lurk lower down and I spent much of the day on sinking line trying to tempt a monster out of the depths.

I love fishing the small brooks and stream for wild brownies on light tackle but equally I love the pure unadulterated fun of fishing for these monster rainbows. Every time you hook in to a fish it makes you smile and make a noise that goes something like "ooopphh" as you feel the fish making it's first run. I finished the day with 2 Rainbows and a Brown weighing in at 10lbs

The fish taste good too, I just had a fillet with Parsley Sauce and some Jersey Royals - delicious.

Useful Links: Pennine Fishery

Trout stuffed with smoked bacon and mushrooms

If you have a few Rainbow's in the fridge after a good days fly fishing and you are looking for a bit of inspiration then try this trout recipe for size!

Ingredients

1 Trout prepared for stuffing (gutted and filleted but the two fillets left connected at tail)

4 Rashers of smoked bacon diced,

8 Chestnut mushrooms sliced,

4 Cloves of garlic finely,

Handfull of chopped parsley,

1 Lemon,

Butter

Instructions

Heat a frying pan until it is quite hot. Then add the chopped bacon and cook and stir for 3 or 4 minutes until the bacon starts to brown. Then add the chopped garlic and keep stirring for another minute. Now add the sliced mushrooms and keep stirring until they are just cooked through. Put the pan to one side on a very low heat so it keeps warm.

Now melt a knob of butter in another frying pan on a moderate heat, once the butter has melted place the fish in to the pan. Keep cooking on a moderate heat until the trout has cooked through to the middle. Now turn the trout over and repeat the process on the other side. Once the fish has cooked, carefully place on a warm plate and spoon the bacon mixture in to the middle of the fillets. Finally in the hot pan melt some butter and mix with the chopped parsley and the juice of a lemon - pour this over the fish. Serve straight away with a few new potatoes and a chilled glass of white wine

The Bridge Inn Grinton - Fly Fishing the River Swale

I love reading old fly fishing books, tales of gentleman taking lodgings in famous fishing hotels on the banks of famous rivers, the images of the old smoking rooms adorned with monster trout in cases. After getting myself in the mood by reading "Come Shooting and Fishing" by Major Vivian Bailey, I spent the weekend in the Yorkshire Dales at the Bridge Inn at Grinton, more of a pub than a hotel but it is located on the banks of the beautiful river Swale. Grinton is a small hamlet a few miles from the village of Reeth. The Pub is decorated with fishing pictures and old rods and there is a good library of books and magazines as well. As a foot note to the great fishing on offer the food and local beer is second to none.

I don't think I have ever received a warmer welcome at a pub, all the staff are fantastic and treat you like an old friend. You can buy day tickets for Reeth and District Angling Club waters from behind the bar at a cost of £7.50. You can fly fish, spin or fish with an upstream worm. The Landlord of the pub Andrew is very friendly and fishes the river himself, he will happily give you advice on flies that have been catching or pools that are worth a try.

I fished the Bridge pool and some of the pools further downstream, and had three lovely Brown Trout all on Black Pennel. I also had some rises to a black Klinkhammer but missed them all! This is a beautiful area of the world and deserves a visit regardless of whether you are fishing or not. However if you can spare the time, visit the Bridge Inn have pint of Cumberland, a good meal and then catch the evening rise on the river!

Useful Links: The Bridge Inn Website

Salmon & Trout Association call for the catch and release of all Sea Trout

The Salmon and Trout Association have called for a voluntary ban on killing all Sea Trout. There has been a decrease in the population recently in areas not affected by marine aquaculture and until we know why the S&TA is asking anglers to return all Sea Trout to the river.

Useful Links: The Salmon and Trout Association

The Secret Trout Pool!

When I am not working as a Fly Fishing Instructor, you will find me fishing! If I am not fishing I will be found working on my own little fishery. The Secret Trout Pool is hidden away somewhere near the village of Bradfield on the edge of the Peak District. It is tiny but perfect when I am teaching total beginners, it is only every fished by my clients and only occasionally so the fish are very obliging! It's great for people to be able to learn some basic skills in total privacy without other anglers watching.

There is a cracking hatch of flies including a wonderful hatch of Damsels. At the minute I am raising the water level slightly with the construction of a new dam over the outlet and well as trying to regular survey the fly hatches through out the year.

Sheffield's Trout In The Town Project

Things are happening in Sheffield's river Don!

Excuse me sir! It's upstream dr fly only here.

So, through sheer luck or a chance meeting with a friend of a friends Uncles Dad, you have managed to secure an afternoon on one of our well known Trout streams such as the Itchen, Test or Derbyshire Wye. You've arrived on the bank side with a bulging fly box and high hopes of a memorable day, you can't see any fish rising so you tie on a pheasant tail nymph as a general imitation. Within what seems like seconds, the river keeper materialises out of nowhere and says "Excuse me sir! It's upstream dry fly only here" You mumble something about "being sorry" and fiddle with the pockets of your fishing vest. However what you really wanted to say but didn't have the courage was "Why is that then?"

You will see all sorts of different reasons given for the upstream dry fly rule. You will hear things like "It gives the fish sanctuary below the surface" or "It's more sporting". While there may be elements of truth in this, the real reason could be far more interesting - because a rich bloke decided he knew best over 150 years ago. The gentleman in question is the angling author and self declared fly fishing expert F.M Halford. Halford was born into a wealthy family in 1844, he saw himself as a pioneer of entomology, studying the contents of fish’s stomachs for clues about their diets and observing Trout feeding on the surface.

While this may sound like a dedication to the sport, this was actually Halfords downfall. Halford became obsessed with the winged insects that he saw the trout eating, so much so that he dismissed the idea of fishing below the surface as a waste of time contrary to the fellow fisherman of his era. He also seemingly dismissed the theory that general imitation patterns could be just as effective, trying instead to painstakingly tie perfect imitations. Halfords views were that the only worthwhile of fishing for Trout was to fish with a dry fly and the only way of using the dry fly without it becoming sodden within seconds was to cast upstream and let the current bring the fly downstream naturally, hence the upstream dry fly.

The question is then, if Halfords views were so blinkered and if other anglers at the time were successfully using subsurface patterns then why were Halfords views taken as gospel by other anglers and fishery owners at the time ?

The answer could be because Halford was living through a period of huge change. He was writing and publishing his theories just as fly fishing was becoming a popular pastime. With the advent of the steam train, more and more people were able to travel to the chalk streams which Halford was now involved in. Crucially this meant that the gentleman of London, with huge disposable incomes and increasing leisure time were able to embrace the chalk streams and pay large amounts of money to have beats to themselves exclusively or even purchase fishing estates and lodges along their banks, they could set off from London in the morning and be home for a nightcap the same evening, something that until then had been impossible.

These gentleman listened to Halford for no other reason other than they didn't know any better - he was one of the few people at the time who was writing lots of literature about the merits of the upstream dry fly. The more people that listened to Halford the more his theories became gospel - that the only worthwhile to fish for trout was with a dry fly! There were many who were successfully fishing with subsurface flies and disagreed fundamentally with Halford, however maybe they just didn't disagree loud enough - Halford certainly didn't listen to them!

So next time the keeper catches you with a downstream Dog Nobbler instead of an upstream Greenwell's Glory, blame it on F.M Halford or if you want to fish there again say sorry and fiddle with your pockets.