River Dove 12th February 2010

This week I had decided to join the midweek slackers and get some fishing in on Friday. My other job for the day was to drop the kids off at school and then collect them at 3.30pm. This gave me a good few hours in the middle of the day to head off to the River Dove. I had decided to start at Ellastone and upon arrival recognised Guy's (Orvisfan from flyforums) car parked up by the bridge. I do enjoy a good chin wag with a fellow angler and it is more pleasureable at this time of the year when the fish are a bit thin on the ground. Guy had fished since 8.00am and had just one grayling on the duo so it wasn't going to be easy. I tackled up with a three fly set up intending to practice the Czech nymph technique. This is a new method to me and I'm still finding my feet with it.

I started off fishing the faster water at the top of the beat with little success. This spot has not fished well for me at all on my last few visits. It is one of the perculiarities of Ellastone that the water seems to fish well or not at all and today was one of the latter. Guy soon joined me and persevered with the duo. He was soon into a fish that turned out to be one of the resident rainbows.

In the afternoon I decided to give Eaton Dovedale a go. This is a good stretch but I did not fish it much last season. There is plenty of water to explore but it does colour up quickly after rain. I put this down to the Churnet joining the Dove only a couple of hundred yards upstream of the start of the Railway water. Three grayling saved my blushes and I had all three on the Czech nymph. I did nearly switch to the duo but realised I had left my floatant at the car. The Dove Valley is much more open here than at Ellastone and the wind felt it was coming straight from the steppes. Once the sun came through though it was great to be out in the fresh air.