I love Barlow Brook. It's a real hidden gem and one of the few day ticket rivers in Derbyshire you can fish for wild brown Trout as well as some large rainbows that have "escaped" from the fish farm.
When I visited for a morning fishing the other day, there were many people slogging it out on the trout lakes while as usual there was no one bothering to fish the brook! Within 5 minutes of carefully dropping my bead head hares ear under the Bridge I was into a wild brownie of about a pound, which on light tackle put up a hell of a fight.
The beauty of Barlow Brook is that it has been left wild. Putting a pair of waders on is all that is needed to discover all the magical pools, eddies and fast water runs that hold a good head of fish. The other wonderful thing about this brook is the fact that most of the time it is gin clear. This enables the fly angler to undertake that most exciting method of fishing; stalking.
With a pair of Polaroid glasses you can target individual fish, we spotted some very large rainbows skulking in the shallow pools that must have been touching 4lbs! Casting has to be accurate and short gentle roll cast tend to be the easier method as there is lots of bank side vegetation making overhead casting tricky in places.
We found it best to start at the downstream boundary of the Brook (the stone bridge) and gradually wade your way upstream investigating each little pool or eddy. If you have a mate with you one can be "spotter" who scouts ahead locating the fish in the pools and then guiding you fly over the right spot. Which is always a good laugh!
Anyway, next time you fancy a bit of a change, try out the brook it is fantastic fun and they do a cracking fry up in the log cabin too!
Useful websites: Barlow Fishery Website
Sunday, 12 April 2009
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