Fly-fishing, Streamers, Tackle, Trout, Writing

Alevins, coffee and kuksa

Early days on the water.

So far this year, when the fish haven’t been rising to dries, I’ve remembered my old suspicion (born from several years helping to run the old Trout in the Classroom programme on the Wandle) that savvy trout won’t just be eating insects at this time of the season.

They’ll surely also be keeping an eye out for high-protein supplements – otherwise known as innocent baby fry emerging from the gravels before getting caught up in currents they can’t resist, and carried into the danger zone…

This suspicion has paid off frequently enough to keep me fishing small streamers around the edges of the obvious insect hatches – at least when I’ve been able to get away from my desk – and Nick Thomas’s Micro Minnow pattern has been working well for imitating swim-up fry.

It’s quite enlightening to see it being snatched by trout small enough to bounce themselves off the hook after a moment or two (also small enough that you wouldn’t immediately suspect them of cannibal tendencies) but the photo above shows one of the bigger specimens that seemed to pick on one of its own helpless relatives for a tasty springtime snack.

Then, before and after the alevin hatch, or whenever the time seems right to pause and appreciate the moment, out comes the birch-burl kuksa. It’s good to be back.