Magnificent Seven

After meeting 9am at the Peacock for morning tea, all 7 likely lads decided to stick together and wonder through Rowsley Meadows for a start. Me and Glen set out to make sure John (Badcaster of forum) who was having his first river experience caught a few fish and enjoyed his experience. After a little advise John was away and this picture below shows his first Wye rainbow and I'm not sure who was the most pleased out of the 3 of us. Just for the record Johns casting was ok, pretty good in fact, maybe he should change his avatar to notbadcaster.

I think everybody caught fish in the meadow, even me and Glen wet a line for a few including a fine lady who'd taken my olive f-fly. There was a nice hatch above the water of what looked like pale watery's but with it being early morning and not being able to pick out the distinct yellow eyes, I considered autumn duns as they appeared somewhere in between olive and yellow but with blue/grey wings - all olives to an amateur like me and we were all catching fish so who cares.

Moving upstream of the fisherman's towards the barn I showed John a little of the wild side of things, he soon caught a few fish, in fact he got more takes than me. After a while John was away on his own living the dream and I'm glad to report he had a few trout and 1 grayling which was excellent first time out. Best fly of the day was Sturdy's Fancy which was brought to my attention a few seasons ago by Dry Fly Guru Richard Ward and on its day, a truly untouchable fly.

After my Chinese takeaway in town the crowds disappeared so I set about fishing for some of the big lads in town and they weren't making life easy let me tel you and had me sitting on the bench puzzling more than once, in fact we couldn't get a take for love nor money. I suddenly remembered Jan (riverkeeper) mentioning he'd been spotting huge red sedges and after scanning my fly box I noticed my new VW sedges which I hadn't tried yet. Well you've guessed it, wallop! and my poor little bamboo (Old Majestick) was really put through her paces as a large rainbow was throwing bow waves everywhere, shooting like a torpedo at break neck speeds. I remember Dave (Squire) laughing while commenting on the bend in my cane and he took this picture for me above. After a tremendous fight I'm glad to report Old Majestick had risen to the challenge in bringing home a lovely 5lb8oz Wye rainbow.