#15 Tiny Trout from a Tiny River

Hello everybody, welcome back to another fishing video. I've got to apologise about the audio in this particular video. Not this part of the video, but the fishing part of the video. The previous fishing video that I put out actually destroyed my external mic. The weather was so wet that it got into the electrics and it knackered it. And I didn't realise until I'd filmed this entire fishing trip. So, unfortunately, most of the audio, in fact, I think all the audio is in the left. If that's too much for you, just switch off. To me, it doesn't really matter unless you're wearing headphones, but I thought I'd better see it. At the moment, I'm just unable to answer any comments or really even check the comments because I'm just stupidly busy with work. I'm going to try and get as many videos out on the channel as possible. Just to keep people entertained and educated, if they're educational or entertaining. Some people might think they're neither, but anyway, I'm going to try and get as many out as I can. If you want to ask me questions about work-related stuff, like the filter media, filters, how to set up aquariums, all that sort of stuff, in those types of videos, my contact details are always in the video description and in the pinned comments. Phone is best. That's what I've got on me all the time. Don't bother texting or any of this sort of nonsense. I just never see texts, never use WhatsApp or any of that sort of nonsense as well. Phone is the best way to get a hold of me if you want me for business. Enjoy. I was just about to say that I'm the only person who will have fished this river since the last time I fished it and there's something really strange. Look at that. Somebody or something has moved a big stone from there and a one from there and by the looks of it a one from there as well. I hope there's another one. There's something gone from here and yet I can't see where they've actually moved them to. Possibly another one gone from there and up there. It's not as if anybody's been trying to build a dam or anything or a walkway. It's a really strange one. Oh well, let's get fishing. I've come right up into the hills tonight to try and catch some really nice wild brownies. This is a tiny little river. It's actually called the Devil's Water. It goes into the Tyne. But this is right up at the top end of it. It's practically just a big stream in parts. Now if I can catch them I know that there's some gorgeous fish in here because I did fish this particular stretch last year. It's a private stretch that's owned by a guy that I know I've done work for in the past and he's kindly let me fish it again. So I cannot see much rising but I'm going to I'm going to stick with the old mayfly pattern that I had on in the last video. And I'll see if any of these fish in this river still remember what a mayfly looks like. Well, nothing doing in the tail end of this pool. I will come back to this one though, and I'll work my way up it when I come back up the river. I think I'll have a go in a little runner now. Same fly, which is that one, which as far as I know is a grey wolf, a winged grey wolf. It's just like a big grey dust, they're really wings. Might be too big for this river though. I've only seen one mayfly. Um... I think we're coming towards the end of the mayfly season and there's a bit of a breeze. There could be a lot of terrestrials like beetles, flies, caterpillars, all that sort of thing dropping in off the trees, you know. So I'll bash on with this fly a little bit more in a couple of different pools. If that doesn't work, I'll switch to something small and brown or small and black. That generally works in coloured water. You know, the water's a little bit peaky. I tend to like black. Okay so this is the next pool, well I really hesitate to call it a pool, that is the part of the little stream that I'm going to be fishing, but instead of fishing it from the top with a wet fly and kind of doing it the easy way, I'm going to go down there and fish it up with the dry fly, but instead of walking over these rocks I'm going to go up into the woodland around and then approach from the bottom. Well I still remember what a mayfly looks like. But unfortunately those fish that were taking that were just absolutely tiny. When I come back up I think I'll switch to something like a size 14 grey duster or something. Um... Yeah they're really tiny fish in this little stream. I have seen a couple of fish rising in here and they look like absolute monsters. We've actually got a decent back cast as well so everything's looking good. Now I did warn you that the fish in here were going to be big. It's a monster! It's a very beautiful monster and he's going back. Well, that's better than nothing, I thought I was actually going to blank. Well, you'd have to work pretty hard to make a meal from this river. I think that's slightly bigger than the last one, but not by much. This is hard fishing, very hard. They're so small, they're just flicking the fly. I think this one is even bigger than the last one. Just give you a close up of those spots on there. Look at that. Gorgeous. And the blacks are black, reds are red. Okay, now I've got one tiny little knot in the line. It's right in the middle. And seeing as I'm a perfectionist, I'm gonna take the line off, put a new one on. It's two pound nylon that I'm using, which is really, really light. But when you're only fishing for fish this sort of size, it's got to be light. You can't use like five or six pound line, you know, cause they're just gonna see it. I'm also gonna step down the size of the fly as well. I'll have a look, see what I've got in here. See if I've got like a midgey pattern or something. Now there's my floatant. That's what I use. This bottle must be 15, 20 years old, but it's absolutely amazing stuff. Keeps the fly dry for ages. Well, let's see what we've got. Awesome, I know exactly what I'm putting on. I'll get the line put on first, and then I'll show you the fly. Although we've caught a few on this big fella, that's coming off, because small rivers generally require smaller tactics. Oh, I've got some blacks in there as well, and some green wells. I'll stick with the midget pattern, I think. The old line, it's wound up. Put away into a zippered pocket so it cannot come out and then that gets disposed of in the bin at home. In fact I normally hide it in the fire just to make sure it's completely gone just in case it gets into a landfill or something like that, strangles a bird or ties their legs up. Never be too careful. I always go one and a half that gives me about nine or ten feet and if I've got a seven foot rod that's about right. What that does it just makes sure that the casting is good. Because if your line is too short, it's too near your main fly line, and it drags very quickly. If it's too long, and the wind's blowing in your face, it all just gets tangled up and everything. So if it's more or less right, you tend to get a better cast, and it's more easily controlled as well. Especially in little rivers like this, when you've got different current, you've got submerged rocks. You know, you've often got to battle to keep the fly steady, because the last thing you want it to do is start dragging across the top. Unless you're intending to drag it across the top sometimes that does induce a take but normally you wouldn't want it to drag you'd want the fly to remain static if it was a dry fly and just be taken down very naturally in the current because the fish are watching flies come down all day every day. If there's one that doesn't look right and that's cutting across the current and dragging a wily fish is going to see that a mile away and avoid it. Look at the state of this. I think there's about half a dozen wet flies. Everything else is dry and it's all natural colours. And the reason I change the nylon when I get a knot in is probably twofold. First reason is, if the line is dragging and the fly is steady, the line, if it's got a knot in, will create a wake on the water. And you don't want that because the fish are just going to see that straight away. And also, that was a canny shot. My eyes mustn't be as degraded as I thought. And the second reason is the strength. If you're only using two pound nylon, You know, I mean, you might catch a fish in here that's a pound, pound and a half or something, if you're exceptionally lucky, and if you've got a few knots in the line, that's going to reduce it from two pound down to a pound and a half, a pound maybe, and that's just asking for trouble, you know. Oh, straight through. Scientist slide. It doesn't make you blind. I think this is a size 16 Adams. Barb off? Yes, it is. And that's got, like, a little grizzle cape on it. It's hard to see. I'll give it a background. There you go. It's basically just a little midgie pattern with a tail, little grizzle wings, rabbit fur body and like a gingery grizzly cape or hackle made from a grizzly cape. And that's going to get the gink treatment, doesn't need much at all, tiny little bit, roped on and that's going to float lovely. The good thing is this is such a small fly that even if it does sink or you sink it intentionally, Just drift it down in the current. The fish often take it under the water as well. They often take it sub-surface. I'll attack the top end of this pool now. Now I've got to be exceptionally careful when I'm striking into these fish because if I strike how I would normally hit a, you know, decent sized fish, these little lads are just going to come straight out and end up in the wood. I'm not even going to get up to show you that one, it's smaller than the first one. Now because of where I'm sitting in relation to where I'm actually fishing, The fish have got no idea that I'm here. You know, they cannot see the fly line. All they see is a little fly line. Boom, they're hitting it. Most of the time I'm missing them here because they're so small. Well, I didn't manage to actually get any. Well, I didn't do too good there. I'm going to try in the very top of the pool now. I just need to move up maybe another five or six yards just to give me the ability to actually cast the fly that far because it might not look too far when you're actually watching it in this video. I'm pretty much at the limit of my casting range, where I'm at now. There's got to be something in up there underneath those tree roots. I just brought that back wet. The fish kept having a go at it when it was dry. Oh dear me. Yeah, it kept having a go at it when it was dry. So I thought, I'll just sink it, bring it back wet, boom. Well, not exactly boom. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. More like tap. Well, I seem to prefer this little fly wet. Just caught another one from underneath those tree roots there and it's no bigger than the first one. That's the last one. Well I think this pool has given up practically all of its fish to me. I'm going to go down a little bit further see what we can get down there. It's difficult to see but right in the middle of the shot there there's one of those tiny little trout just holding in the current. It's way easier just standing at the top of a pool fishing into the current and just slowly twitching the fly back which is why I generally don't do it. I like to do things the hard way, well not necessarily the hard way, but the interesting way. You know, fish it with a dry from the side or from the bottom, you know, it's just more interesting. Anybody can catch fish on a wet fly, as I will hopefully now demonstrate. You don't have to be anywhere near as quiet or as stealthy when you're fishing a pool from the top down because the fish just kind of see you, you know, there's all those rapids and... Right, there's all the noise as well, you know, so much easier fishing from the top down. There you go, straight away, it's not a monster but it was very easy to catch, tiny little guy. Now we're back to that pool with that big floating patch of scum there and I did fish that from the bottom. I cannot remember whether I caught any fish but I think I had a couple look at the fly. This is a prime example where it would be a good one to fish from the top, you know, if you sit up here. Cast it down here and bring it up the side underneath that scum there's bound to be fish under there so as much as I don't like fishing from the top down that's what I'm going to do. That was actually a canny fish I knew there would be a big fish under there. I don't think I'm going to get another one from here now that's probably the Lord Trout of this manner. That feels like a real missed opportunity it only came up briefly that one but... Looked about that sort of size, which is a canny size for this little river. Now I do have a decent sized pool coming up on my way back. I wanted to save that one to last because I think that one will hold the biggest fish. Whether I can catch him or not is a different matter because the water is very clear, it's very slow. This might be another one where I've got to fish it from the top and I don't want to do that. So I'm going to go at least halfway up from the bottom, see if I can get anything. And if that fails, fish it from the top because I know that that will probably work. Now believe it or not this little river actually gets some huge fish in the back end of the year. Sea trout run up here and I mean you can get fish I don't know six, seven, eight, maybe even more pound in weight. Absolutely gigantic fish run up this river but in the summer there's next to nought in it, just tiny little brownies. I think towards the back end of the year I'm going to have to come up and have a go for the sea trout because that should make a good video. Let's go up a Let's go up a little bit. Yeah. Let's just go through this. These fish are absolutely tiny. Now this is probably going to be my last chance to catch something that's bigger than a minnow. Although I could cross over and fish this from the other side, which I might do if I don't catch anything. Backcast, pretty much non-existent. Tree's overhanging here. It's not going to go down well, this one. But I'm fishing it from the top, so even if it's a bad cast, I can just let it drift down and bring it back slowly. Something's bound to hit this. Something's got to be in there. And really, anything over six inches I would class as a real result for this river. Well, I'm halfway there. This one's probably three inches, maybe. One thing there is a lot of here is midges blowing right in my face, so I think the midge guard's coming out. If you're interested in this smock I'll put the details in the video description and the pinned comment. I did give a little quick review for it in the last video, so if you want to check out the video previous to this, I'll explain all the features in it. But the main feature is anti-midgey net. I swear, some of these fish in here are so small, I'll probably just need a pair of tweezers to handle them properly. Absolutely tiny. Well, there you go, that video, compared to the last one, was a little bit of a let down. Caught a few fish, but they were absolutely tiny, you know? I mean, this is a really small river. And as I mentioned before, fish of about a pound, pound and a quarter, would be a proper Lord Trout from this river. It would be a monster. Didn't latch onto one of those today. I might come up. Later on in the summer, I don't know. I'll definitely come up in the back end of the year though when the sea trout are running up and we'll try and latch onto some sea trout with a little spinning rod. Good times. Thanks for watching. See you next time.