[Sandy Nelson]

I'll kick this years Deveron post off

I got out today for a wee bit of prospecting for Gold. Lots of wandering about looking at some very nice water.
About 1pm the flies started to trickle off mostly Large dark olives, the hatch lasted for about 1hr, the second half of the hatch was dominated by these bad boys



I seemed to manage to find myself in a good spot just as the fish discovered there were olives hatching (about 15mins after they started to hatch), some lovely fish noseing the flies, tricky to cast but i got myself close enough to get a decent drift with a size 12 DHE.

I missed the first rise Hooked the second which broke the hook and i landed the third



Then after just 20mins the fish stopped rising and i had no more offers.
Still my first broonie for the season and it was a good 2lber, so i'm chuffed to bits and looking forward to next week.

Cheers

Sandy

[Colin Sunley]

There's no stopping you this season. Most haven't even had a fish yet and there rolling off your line

[Allan Liddle]

Great stuff Sandy, bad luck on the trophy, hopefully you get a few more chances soon.

Opened my account last Monday with a modest fish around 12 - 14 ounces then lost a sea troot kelt just after, both on size12 DHE in a very sparse and brief hatch of olives.

Roll on next week.   

[Andy Finlay]

Decided to have a go on the Deveron following a conversation with Sandy. Went up today as not much free time for the next few weeks, unfortunately for me it was pretty cold with a down wind and having rained yesterday the water was seriously cold. Spent the day wandering up and down the beat which to be honest wasn't a bad thing as having never been there before I'd certainly say some promising water for later in the year when things warm up. Very little by way of fly life and no rising fish. Did manage one brownie on a nymph towards the end of the day which was in the 1lb region so season off to a start and bring on the warmer weather.

[Sandy Nelson]

I've spent the last couple of days exploring some more beats.

Yesterday was hard going for a couple of nice fish, but i did find some lovely water and the olives trickled off in reasonable numbers for a decent spell, just didn't see much rising

Today however was a much better day, cracking hatch started about 1pm and there were still a few flies coming off at 4.30, but the fish were looking up for most of the afternoon, great fun targeting fish although they wouldn't look at the DHE, so it was a day for the CDC rusty olive spider.

Had quite a few bonny fish this one pretty fat for March, so who ate all the March Brown Pies



And this was my biggest of the 2 days and another 2lbr beautiful Bronze colour with red fins, the pictures just don't do it any justice.



Nice eye shot selfie



Hopefully that is the start proper, for all you guys out over the next few days, Tightlines and trust me i'll be thinking of you

Sandy

[Mike Barrio]

Great stuff Sandy

[Allan Liddle]

Yup i'll be one of 'em Sandy 

[Allan Liddle]

Despite the lack of trophies for me i hace enjoyed excellent sport between the gusts especially when the olives have been out.
Best fish so far is a noteable 2lb 2oz



But the rest have amost all been a pound or slightly over which isn't too shabby at all







Between the hatches my new nymph line's been christened and fish have shown a real attraction to some of my wee jig nymphs.  So far so good

[Allan Liddle]

Another 11 today and at last the trophies were out to play.
Managed a belter of 4lb 1.5oz followed immediately with a cracking 3lb 1oz fish, add to this a 2lb 6oz and 2lb 3oz along with a few around the pound and a cracking day was had.

Hoping to get out again tomorrow.

Photos to follow.

Allan

[Iain Cameron]

superb! two TFs in a day is a grand day

[Allan Liddle]

Another one yesterday and three over two, one just 1 1/2 oz short of the magical three.  I know Iain had a belter 3 3/4 pounder as well.
Strange thing was a cracking MB hatch and hardly a fish touched 'em, same on Friday 

[Iain Cameron]

Around 4pm, there was a flurry of March Browns, enough of them to suddenly get the fish looking at them. I was about to cross a pool when it started popping, 4 or 5 fish nailing MBs. I nailed a solid fish... turned out to be a 2lb sea trout kelt. Duh!


did have a 3lb 12oz brown earlier in the day when the fish were keyed on olives, which was nice. (I had a look Sandy, it didn't have your fly in its jaws...)


still having issues uploading pics, i'll try and see if I can post one
http://www.fishingthefly.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=2662

[Sandy Nelson]

A Lovely trip to the Deveron today with some good mates, always a great way to spend the day.

There were a few fish rising when we got there at 11 and this continued in wee bursts right through to about 2.30. the odd march brown still coming off at 4 but only the occasional rise.
When the rise kicked in the fish were very free to come up and seemed to enjoy a nice dark DHE.
We had a few....



With some real nice ones mixed in, even if they were a bit too eager to get back to the flies, for the camera



One or two wee trophies too.



not all of our Fishing buddies today were quite so camera shy though, we spent a good while watching this young fella rooting around and eating stuff, he was happy to pose for the camera too, i got some of it on video, but the quality isn't that great, i'll try to edit it and post it a bit.



All in a great day and a fantastic river.

Cheers

Sandy

[Marc Fauvet]

it didn't want to leave the Stickman ! 

[Sandy Nelson]

The wee video as promised, not great unfortunatley , but it was a great experience.
Sorry about the wind

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/125073949" width="500" height="375" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p> from Alexander Nelson on Vimeo.</p>

Cheers

Sandy

[Colin Sunley]

Well done mate looks smaller on screen than real life, this thing was hugh about the size of a fox. Was great to see it up close

[Allan Liddle]

Looks like a cracking day Sandy green eyes here stuck in the office all day 

I know where you were btw  and I've met your wee furry friend before 

[Sandy Nelson]

I don't doubt that at all Alan, the wee furry fella was not bothered by us at all so is obviously quite used to seeing anglers.
He was rooting around the rocks for food and he kept coming up and crunching things, i didn't get a look at what it was, but i would have been very interested. His nose was quite raw from grubbing around.

The fishing was superb and my best day of the year so far, 2 TF's (in 3 casts!) and 3 other RB's amongst the notables. Some cracking fish moving all along the beat, plenty to share with friends

Mr B even got his first of the year too, unfortunatley his unorthodox method of finding his fly let the fish jump out of the net before i got a decent photo Twas a notable as well though

very much enjoying exploring a relatively new river

Sandy

[Mike Barrio]

Mr B even got his first of the year too, unfortunatley his unorthodox method of finding his fly let the fish jump out of the net before i got a decent photo Twas a notable as well though

    

[Allan Liddle]

I don't doubt that at all Alan, the wee furry fella was not bothered by us at all so is obviously quite used to seeing anglers.
He was rooting around the rocks for food and he kept coming up and crunching things, i didn't get a look at what it was, but i would have been very interested. His nose was quite raw from grubbing around.

The fishing was superb and my best day of the year so far, 2 TF's (in 3 casts!) and 3 other RB's amongst the notables. Some cracking fish moving all along the beat, plenty to share with friends

Mr B even got his first of the year too, unfortunatley his unorthodox method of finding his fly let the fish jump out of the net before i got a decent photo Twas a notable as well though

Excellent stuff Sandy, river's been a wee bit slow since middle of last week, needs a bit of fresh water t kick start things a wee bit


Great stuff and plenty more water to see
very much enjoying exploring a relatively new river

Sandy

[Allan Liddle]

Story so far

Eight outings on Deveron (seems like more) and been lucky enough to find some nice fish as well as some great fishing.

112 troots landed to date with all but five of them coming to the DHE (the others were on nymphs when trying out my nymph line one short spell waiting on the hatch to start)

River's very low and crystal clear at the momnet making getting on troots a wee bit more challenging, however if you can get yourself into a good position then the fish can still be tempted.

12 fish between 2lb and 3lb (2 of 'em an agonising 2lb 14oz) which is great fishing and very welcome, 2 between 3lb and 4lb (3lb 10z and 3lb 4 oz) and best so far 4lb 1.5oz.  Hoping to add to this soon,  however with the average size beyond the NF's and RB's a good 14oz and plenty over a pound the fishing's not exactly shabby.

LDO's on the move and BWO's should start to appear anytime 

[Sandy Nelson]

Been a really tough week

I had two visits to the Deveron and it is 2" below normal height according to the gauges and in many areas you can see every rock on the bottom. Couple this with relentless bright sunshine and variable wind directions and the odd conditions seem to have put the trout on edge.
If i could find them, which i did the first day, then they would rise but strikes had to be almost immediate to set a hook and those, as expected, ended up lightly hooked and tricky to land. If you gave it the correct couple of seconds to turn, then the fly got spit back out. I think the brightness and clear water had the fish right on edge so anything that didn't feel/look right got ignored or rejected almost immediately and often spooked the fish for a while.
Lovely day for a walk and an explore and lots of flies coming off from early morning to lunchtime, LDO's, OU's and MB's along with other midge, small caddis and terrestrials.




The next day much further downstream was different in that i saw almost no flies at all, barring a few LDO spinners and a handful of OU's in the afternoon. I didn't see any decent rising fish all day and ended up get a couple of 8"er's that were taking terrestrials under a tree, only steady risers i saw all day.



I think the conditions were really tough for everyone out on the river, but some beats did get a rise and some good fish were caught by those with lots of patience and sharp eyes. So it boiled to down to choice of beat, Exploring new water this week was perhaps not my best idea, but i did find lots of really nice water to explore again later in the year

Sandy

[Sandy Nelson]

Well what a difference from last friday.

Arrived at the river to find it running a two tone brown, one side like chocolate and the other like coffee, all down to run off from feeders. We had picked a beat up the river to try and get clearer water, but it was still pretty dismal beginnings.



Not the best of starts , in between rain, snow, hail it was a far cry from the low crystal clear stream i fished under warm skies last week.

However perseveering through to 1230 proved to be a good idea and the river had dropped about an inch from our starting point when the first of the Olive uprights started to trickle off.
Sitting watching a likely looking spot, showed up a couple of risers above where i was sitting, opposite end of the pools to i expected So began an afternoon of creeping about. No real monsters but a good handful of fish 9-12" long



every so often a better fish would move to a fly, a quick cover and they were taking confidently, another half dozen + in the 1-1.5lb range over the course of the time and the best of the afternoon a cracking 2lb+



This guy decided to run a set of rapids and took me round quite a few big rocks, but i manged to get him in for a change , Had to land him up a steep edge hence the photo on the bank and then he swam off strongly.

All fish took a size 12 DHE very confidently, many of them needed forceps to get the fly out, so the day couldn't have been further removed from the "perfect day" last week to the " Did i really decide to go fishing today" Day that today started out as. Very pleased i didn't head home early doors. The OU's hatched in big numbers all afternoon, probably the biggest hatch i've seen this year and although the fish were very localised it was great fun

Sandy

[Sandy Nelson]

Another week of dodgy weather and rising and falling water had me watching the webcams with anticipation this morning.
So with the river looking pretty good and a willingness that surpassed the wind i ventured off in search of gold.

Good hatches all day with a plenty fish in the decent category rising freely when you could beat the wind to cover them



One or two better ones seen and covered, all willing to come and pose for the camera



The best fish we saw all day was hanging in a back eddy and swallowing every fly that came his way, but it required a 5ft cast in the wind and then a quick drift so proved to be very hard to get right, soon enough he spooked and stopped playing, so we continued upstream to find more.
On the way back it was chucking it down but i stopped to see if he was back and it he was circling the eddy feeding like mad, so more combat stuff and trying to get 5ft of flyline to cast in a strong breeze, but i covered him and he came up, in fact he came up 5 times for the fly over 10mins before he eventually took it and i got him in.

A Cracker, almost a trophy but not quite, well chuffed.



So a tough but good day, not as many fish rising as i would have expected with the water looking perfect, but those that were, were worth being there for. Quite a few Tourists moving as well.

Sandy

[Mike Barrio]

Great stuff Sandy