30th April  –  Thirkleby

To say I have been fed up with rain and high water on all the YTAA becks is an understatement. The feeling is even worse when its nice sunny afternoon and the you know the becks are going to be high and fast and muddy, but in the end it was too much and I had to get out and at least look at Isle Beck to see if there was any chance of fishing.

I arrived at the A19 Bridge at half past two and a glance over the bridge showed the beck was high and fast but not too muddy so knowing it might be even better at Thirkleby I headed up to the Mill. Instead of my much favoured Hardy 5 footer I tackled up using my Malcolm Grey 5’ #2/3 as I guessed (correctly!) I would be using a lot of weighted nymphs and a strong breeze that had picked up from nowhere suggested I would need the extra power of the carbon fibre rod.

I do like to use dry flies when it is practical and effective so I started with a Black Emerger on the line and landed a nice 11 inch trout almost straight away. Sadly that was the end of the action on dry flies and I soon switched to a scruffy pheasant tail pattern I had tied up using a bright orange bead that my fishing buddy and I thought might work well in slightly muddy conditions. The beck was certainly going to test out that theory and while it was only about 8 inches higher than normal it was moving fast and was definitely carrying colour.

I fished my way up above the mill and up to the weir pool at the top of our beat, and the orange bead PTN proved its worth and added 4 more trout and a small chub to my bankside log book before I got to the weir.

From a distance the weir pool didn’t look too bad but close up it was running very fast and the bead on the PTN was probably a bit light to get down deep enough so I was about to change to a heavier goldhead when I saw fish rising on the edge of the main current. As I watched I saw that there were several fish rising and taking something from among bits of debris floating just off the current. I switched to the Black Emerger, then a Green Emerger, then an F fly, then an Adams, then a gnat and then I ran out of time.

Nothing I had tried worked but the fish (I think they were chub) had continued to take something on the surface all around my flies, but ignored my offerings, never mind I will be back - hopefully soon.

  25th April  –  Riccal Re-Visited

I didn’t expect to be back at the Riccal so soon after the last frustrating tree hooking session, but David Aspinall offered to come with me to do a little careful trimming of branches to open up some of the inaccessible pools and runs. Our cunning plan was to have 2 hours of branching trimming, a leisurely lunch in the camper and fish in the afternoon.

I left David to fish some of the bits we opened up and headed up stream to start above where we had finished work. Looking down from the high bank in front of one of the large woody dams I could see a very respectable fish sitting just off the current. Problem was there were willow saplings making a cast difficult and the wind was blowing straight across the stream at me. I tried a dry fly but couldn’t get it to land anywhere near the right place. I switched to a goldhead on a K&D rig, but even crouched right down I couldn’t get it through the gap in the willows and a catapult cast got nowhere near the right place. Eventually I switched to a free lined shrimp pattern with a white belly which I hoped would be easy to see as it sunk near the fish and at the third attempt I got it more or less in the right place and the fish immediately moved and took it. It was at this point as I tightened into the fish that I realised that it wasn’t a trout but very good grayling.

Although there are quite a few grayling in the Riccal it is rare for me to catch one, in fact when I checked my records I had only caught 7 grayling in the last 20 years and hadn’t landed a Riccal grayling since September 2021! Anyway I landed this one and at 14.5 inches is the best I have had from the Riccal.

To be honest I was so chuffed with that grayling I wasn’t really concentrating for the rest of the afternoon, but I did get a small trout on a dry which was nice.

After a break for a cup of tea David and I walked down to the bottom of the YTAA beat, it’s not good news and as we expected it is very overgrown. Perhaps David and I will have another trip to the Riccal and have a couple of hours opening up a few more of the better pools.

  21st April  –  River Riccal

I have wanted to visit the Riccal for nearly a month but the gauge has always shown it to be too high (19 cm on the gauge is my preferred height) but with the water dropping and the gauge showing 28cm I thought it would be worth a look. A quick glance over the bridge told me it was a bit high but at least it was running beautifully clear so I tackled up with the Hardy 5’#2.

As I often do I went below the bridge and waded through to fish the pool above the bridge but got no offers and then found that with the extra few centimetres (circa 5 inches) the pool was a little bit too deep for me to safely wade through but I managed to scramble out on the side.

There are a few deepish pools on the Riccal and if the gauge says 19cm with a little care you wade though most of them but not today and I found I was doing quite a bit of scrambling out as the afternoon progressed. It wasn’t all down to deep pools, over winter there must have been some very high water as the banks were strewn with big branches and detritus and in quite a few places there were impressive woody debris dams that also required scrambling around.

It was an hour before I finally hooked and landed a trout, by which time I had hooked more than a fair share of low branches and bank side bushes. In fact the whole beat is becoming a nightmare of low branches reaching out across the river. I can’t remember when we last had a work party above the road bridge but we need one soon or the beat will be unfishable.

An hour and a lot of hooked branches later I landed trout number two. A buttery yellow beauty pushing 5 inches which also took the weighted nymph I had switched to when the dry fly wasn’t working.

Another hour went by before I saw a rise in a fairly open run and switching back to a black F Fly landed him on the third cast. Again a pretty little fish which was to be the last of my session as I had definitely had enough of both low branches and scrambling around obstructions and deep pools.

I do seem to have a love hate relationship with the diminutive River Riccal. It is a beautiful bit of water and on the right day it can be spectacular and produce very respectable trout (and grayling) but yesterday even roll casting and kneeling down to cast the low overhanging branches were a source of frustration. Having said that I only lost two flies to the vegetation and I didn’t blank so it must have been a good day!

  18th April  –  Isle Beck

It has not been the best of weather for beck fishing since opening day, I have been watching the weather and more importantly the river gauges to see when the rivers and becks would be low enough to venture out. Eventually with the water levels still a bit high but gradually falling I got fed up with waiting and decided to at least have a look at Isle Beck to see if it was any good.

Arriving at the A19 I looked over the bridge and although the beck was higher than I like it was reasonably clear so I put up a 6’#3 rod and slipped under the bridge to start. It was 13:30 and as I waded under bridge the rain was just starting. Straight away I saw a decent trout rise near the Alder tree and two casts later he was in the net having taken a black F-Fly.

Having put him back and cleared a branch that was in the water spoiling the top of the “Alder Tree” run I moved on to the big pool above it. Here the extent of the extra few inches of water was easier to see. Not coloured but about 6 inches higher than I like and moving quite a bit faster than I like.

Actually the beck was so fast I was having trouble seeing the F-Fly which was sinking so I moved to the side of the beck to change to a Parachute Emerger that would be more buoyant and easier to see. I was just finishing tying it on when a fish rose a yard or two in front of me, I flicked the line out and a few seconds later a decent grayling was in my log book.

Two fish in 10 minutes felt good but it was not to last. The rain now got steadily heavier and although I missed another trout that tried to take a Grey Wulf on a K&D rig I was using it was the end of catching. I kept trying for another hour and a half getting increasingly damp and disappointed as I discovered a number of tree trunks (big ones!) had been washed down with the high waters and had blocked and spoilt a couple of my favourite pools. By the time I was half way between the bridges I could see the water was getting faster and starting to rise, I was not just damp but my fingers were so cold I could barely reel in line let alone change flies so I retreated to the camper and called it a day.

  25th March  –  Opening Day at Thirkleby

At last the much anticipated opening day arrives, but it is cold it’s wet and the Beck at Thirkleby is a little high, flowing fast and has a bit of colour. I exchanged pleasantries with another YTAA member who decided he wanted to try from the Vicarage Pool so he headed downstream while I headed up from the Mill.

There was nothing doing on dry flies so I switched to a Klink and Dink using a size 12 Pheasant Tail Goldhead and soon had a small trout to start the season off.

A nice 12 inch trout followed shortly after and was the best of the day.

I got a couple more good trout at 10.5 and 9.5 inches and two smaller ones by the time I got to the footbridge at Balk Grange Farm. I was actually quite cold and damp by then so headed back to the Camper to have lunch and warm up feeling quite pleased with the 6 trout I had landed.

After a quick sandwich I walked back up and fished above the footbridge to the weir pool and managed 4 more trout and a small chub. I had expected to get several trout from the Pylon Length and the Weir Pool but didn’t get a touch from either.

When I checked back through my records I found that 10 trout on opening day made it my best ever 25th March start which was nice.

On 26th March the weather was much nicer so just after 3pm found me walking downstream from the A19 bridge to see if could add to my great start to the season. The beck was still a little high, fast and coloured so I wasn’t surprised that there was nothing rising to dry flies. So after a while I switched back to the Goldhead fished K&D but that also produced no takers, in fact I didn’t get a touch or see a fish all afternoon. Never mind I know things will improve as the weather warms up.

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