June 1st 6:30pm - 10:15

I arrive at the river with Tim; he is always great company on the river and we are tackled up and ready to go at 6:15.  I have mixed feelings - how will the river fish? I mean, we really hammered it yesterday didn’t we? The first pool seems to bear testament to this worry as it is glassy and lifeless, but a splishy sounding rise is unmistakeable around the corner….. So around we go and we are confronted by a plethora of rising fish. In we get, both fishing Grey Wulf size 12’s.  Tim has three to hand in quick succession - this is his first experience of real mayfly fishing and a silly grin is permanently fixed on his face.

“Christ! It’s like fishing in an aquarium!” he says as trout are leaping, plopping, splishing and splashing around us in some kind of chaotic orchestra of the river.

As the evening wears on, cruciform spents drift by, prostrate on the sliding currents.  By now it’s getting hard to see what we’re doing, the water flickers silver and indigo under the dying rays of the late evening sun and the only time you can be really sure of a flies position is when it is slurped from view; now you see it, now you dont.  The fishing is just excellent and then gets even better as the last half hour brings my three best fish of the season thus far.  The first a beautiful 17″r, a leopard of a fish - muscular and lithe which charges at my wulf from its lie behind a sunken branch. It comes to the net with reluctance and grace after a tremendous fight including a searing run of about 15yds. Next come two lovely deep 15″ fish from a stretch that runs deep and choppy between overhanging bushes of willow - these fish both come from the same lie more or less and were so tight into the trees I conclude they must have been nesting there.

And then a darker moment - I lose a fly in a tree and reach for my box to replace it - only no amount of feverish scrabbling will reveal its whereabouts - it is gone and with it all of the lovely dries that Phil Holding has put up for me and Jean William’s delightful selection of May’s. Never mind I think - they are lost but replaceable, the memory of this evenings fishing is quite the reverse.

By now we’ve both had great sport; Tda and I are lost for words and gushing with eulogies in equal measure. Fishing like this is special and the memories must be polished, nursed and kept safe for posterity. Whilst it might seem like it to Mrs TM, it’s not every day I can get out after all!