High and dry

FOR the past few days I’ve been scanning the skies over the river for the first sand martins, house martins and swallows.

As far as I’m concerned, trout angling doesn’t begin in earnest until they first appear.

It’s not just by chance that their arrival after an incredible trip from Africa – miraculously homing like salmon to within yards of where they were fledged – coincides with the first major hatches of fly life.

Their journey is timed so they can feed on arrival.

Very soon we should see the advance parties darting and swooping over the water. By May, the sky will be filled with them.

The first appearances of fly life will probably be March Browns, which can hatch in March down south but rarely hatch so early here.

I do, however, expect to see them over the next few weeks and, on a mildish day around lunchtime, you will often see the water erupt with a hatch of fly floating downriver in huge armadas to send trout into a feeding frenzy.

Fishing dry fly for river trout is probably as good as it gets. First of all you have got to match the hatch – identify the fly they are feeding on and match it with an imitation.

You start at the bottom of the pool and work your way up, casting about three feet above the rising fish before allowing the dry fly to drift down, gently retrieving the spare line.

One of the curses of dry fly fishing is drag. If the current catches the line causing the fly to skate across the surface quickly or even imperceptibly, the trout will not be interested.

One way of stopping drag is to get behind the fish and cast up and over him. Unfortunately, he might be spooked by the line.

The other, more successful way is to cast over to him at an angle and lay a curly line on the water rather than an arrow-straight one, which can easily drag. To get a curly line, check the cast just before it is laid on the water and it will come back towards you.

The take with a dry fly is very exciting. You might cast over the same fish two or three times before, suddenly, the floating fly is engulfed.

How quickly you strike depends on the speed of the current. If fishing fast water, you have got to strike almost immediately.

On slower stretches, count one.. two.. three.. then lift the rod and tighten into the fish.