Redressing the balance...

Popped along to Llay Road Bridge for a couple of late evening hours. The 'in hand' ratio was finally redressed at Pete 6 Alyn 1.

I left the T in the car and took the 4 weight initially armed with a #20 black duster. Little was moving and I never had a show until a small brown surrendered itself to a small CDC and Elk from the pool immediately below the huge log straddling the river. Moving on to the two bridges the same pattern accounted for two more fish, one of 6" and one of 8", that moved from under the far bank brambles and one bumped fish.

The session was finished in a narrow pool slightly further upstream. As I approached this pool there were regular rises from several fish. These were the most regualr rises I'd seen and maybe appearred to co-incide with the spinner activity around an adjacent Willow and what looked to be some small emerging olives. Still using the CDC and E, two 6" browns quickly obliged at the tail of the pool, the last fish gorging the fly. I changed fly here for a #16 pale olive dun type pattern, there were definitely some small olivey thingies emerging, and also to be able to see it in the dimming light and to give some extra buoyancy as continual little roll casts here were saturating the smaller flies. Second cast at the head of the pool and a lively 6 incher gave its approval. I then snagged up on a small Willow branch, thus losing fly and tippet and whilst tying a new one on a fish could be seen sipping in the slightly slacker water across. There is a nice selection of small Rusty Spinner patterns presently adorning the box (post Derbyshire) so what the heck. With the spinner pattern on I rolled up and acroos the pool head into the slack water, no idea where the fly was landing. After maybe four or five rolls I struck at a slightly larger sip, and contact. I was expecting some sort of explosion, but I was graced with another, although beautiful, 8" trout.

This was a lovely evening session. My casting felt good, I managed to raise a couple of fish whilst searching and finally applying some basic logic on immitation selection based on observations of rise forms and insect life. It was nice to concentrate on the dry, as my last few Alyn sessions have been factored around just getting a result rather that enjoying. All six fish were 6-8", no Parr, no Grayling and all in fine condition (don't know whether this stretch has been stacked this year). Suitably satisfied...