Darley Dale

Today I fished the Derwent at Darley Dale and was hungry to catch after a blank on my last outing. The weather was fine and the river at a good level with a slight tinge colour but the fish were rising nicely dotted about the river. I managed to catch 6 on G.Duster and balloon caddis,until the rain and wind came to plat its part. I quickly changed to my River Criminals (nymphs) as all rising ceased I had nothing to lose as the river fell quiet.

Along with a dark olive damsel nymph this was the making of the day, and proved prolific for the rest of the session. I had a fantastic stamp of fish today and in total netted 26 Bowns including this monster below (50cm), which was much longer than my net. At one stage my arm ached so much I climbed out the river for a pot noodle, just to break away from being pulled all over the Derwent by huge trout.

The colour of this trout below was simply stunning, and was yet another titanic tussle for me as it made 3 huge runs before I got any kind of control over it.

Today was in complete contrast to my last outing and in true style shows you never know what your going to get, which keeps us all going time and time again. Today ranks very high on my alltime great day list, can I really expect things to get any better.