Jolly Boys Outing

Brian, me, Adam, Mick, John, Guy, & Glen

The day finally arrived for my second trip to the Haddon Estate water on the Derbyshire Wye. Tackle into the car then it was off up to Rowsley to meet the other anglers at the Peacock. Once we were quorate the lower river just upstream of Cauldwells Mill was decided upon. This year I was in a much better frame of mind than my last visit where I had convinced my self that I would have a string of monsters throwing themselves on the bank. You have to fish well to get the best from this river and many have returned with backsides truly slapped. There are no easy casts which will cover a fish through the day and with no wading you have to get your presentation spot on with no drag. Once you get it sorted you will be rewarded with superb fish like this wild rainbow.

The fishing went well in the morning and this is a productive stretch. You could spend a lot longer there than the couple of hours that we did.

We then explored the water just north of the town and had some good sport there. Glen put both Brian and I onto some corking fish just below the sheepwash. This was a tricky cast and these clunkers were not fooled.

Sport then dried up and we headed back to the fishermans car park stretch for a leisurely afternoon the highlight of which were several fish for Ads from a difficult cast, more fish for John, and one each for Brian and Mick from Heartbreak Corner.

Then it was time for chilling out with talk of monsters, tackle and flys before heading into town for some grub before a last go at the town water. The fish proved hard to tempt and I had a couple of browns which put the cap on the day nicely. The last from just upstream of the footbridge was a true Derbyshire warrior and I swear it bit me as I extracted the fly.

Those of you who follow Mick's blog will know he has an uncanny knack of winkling out the better fish. Yesterday was business as usual and this 5lb 8oz fish really made his old bamboo creak.

All in all a good day and great company.