Warmth at last

At last some warmth, and with the warm weather came big hatches of large dark olives and the trout rose. There is such a predictability about it: cold early spring days equals poor hatches and dreadful catches; warm early spring days equals great hatches and splendid catches! The successful flies: a simple size 14 CDC and, because I love tradition, Kite's Imperial as old dry and Waterhen Bloa as ancient spider wet.

Whilst it was warm in the Ribble valley, on the tops it was a different matter! A cold breeze blew across my club's small reservoir that is set in the Penine foothills and from which one can see Blackpool Tower 25 miles away. Here the brownies fed erratically despite a good midge hatch and the first of the sepia duns (a very dark brown upwinged fly with three tails that hatches in great numbers at the end of April and into May here). One fish had its stomach crammed with black buzzers, whilst another had a mix of buzzers and sepias. But we would have caught far more without that chilly breeze.

There is more to fishing..... On Monday morning the Hodder team planted out a couple of thousand salmon smolts in the River Dunsop, a major Hodder tributary. Instead of simply pouring them into the river, special smolt-release pools have been created in which the tiny fish can learn to adapt to the river without running the gauntlet of mink, goosanders and chub. When the smolts are bright silver, a gate will be opened at the downstream end and they will be able to swim away when they want to. For me the greatest aspect of the job was having the members of Dunsop Bridge junior school come and help carry the buckets of smolts to the stream. They enjoyed it and learned about the salmon life cycle. Star question: 'Will these honestly come back here?' I said Yes!...and I hope I will be proved right.

Malcolm Greenhalgh

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