Flyfishing FWSW

Today I tested a light rod setup at my home waters, this setup consisted out of an Orvis clearwater 6’#2 with a small reel and a WF2F line.
It was my second #2 rod as I strived to always get at least two indentical setups per lineweights.
As I had not been at the stream for some time I noticed that things were different, a lot …
Seemed the recent removal of a weir downstream had increased the current and lowered the waterlevels, it all just felt and looked different.

My hotspot still had fish though, besides a couple of carp the roach where thick and I pretty soon had two of them on a small nymph.
The shallow water and the racket caused by the captured fish made the rest of the school leave for safer places and so it was time to move.
At the next spot the low water table was not helpfull in catching fish but at least a small dace and a roach came to the surface.

As I was early I visited a spot with slow moving water in the middle of the town.
It turned out just as I had hoped, the dace where picking through the debris in the surface.
I could target several fish with a small segde and landed a few more dace.

In search for stocked trout I left the village and checked out some of the more rural spots of the stream but no signs of trout or other fish in the skinny water.
I spotted the deer tracks but the deer spotted me …

As it was late in the day I had the plan to visit the pub but opening hours where not yet at hand so
I picked out one of the lookout spots on a nearby hill for a small break.

Before I entered the pub I first checked out a spot at the stream that had yielded larger dace for me in the past.
Since it was relatively shallow I pondered if I should use a dry fly but the blossoms and other debris from
the trees where falling like snow so I choose the nymph instead … and caught my first little brown trout of the season.

The pub … well it turned out that they had changed opening hours … earlier now due to the season.
It was good to hear that the landlady had stocked up on dark wheat beer. Standard menu … standard pics 🙂

On the way home I made a stop not so far upstream from the removed weir.
All the exposed stones used to be under water but now exposed.
There were still some fish rising but approach was impossible as the fish could see you coming for miles.
First day on the stream in perfect weather, I just have to do something about the size of those fish though 🙂

As the last fishing trip of 2015 went pretty well on that river at the border
I tried the same spot in the new year as well hoping for good results.
The first trip however did not bring any fish to the net as the only few
hits came from small perch that fell of the hook prematurely.

I tried a second time under quite miserable conditions namely cold and
wet weather when not even the perch wanted to chase any flies.
Out of pure desperation I tied on a small size 16 nymph and fished the
shallow end of the mill pool with a very light tippet.

I found it odd that I got stuck so often untill I finally realized that it
where actually bites … I felt kind of stupid 🙂
One I noticed that the Dace where actively feeding even in the miserable
weather I did quite well, not big fish but at least the first silver fish of the year.