We converged on Hoddom castle this year for a small fishing trip for the Barrio Pro-team members.
The local river is the Annan which i have not fished before, but have heard lots of good things about, so was full of good intentions for 3 days of fishing in good company
Our digs on the morning after the first night, a cool way to go camping, especially for auld mannies
The previous evening after we had all met up at the site (All, being Will, Marc, Hamish, Mike and Myself) and enjoyed a quick walk of the top beat followed by a decent evening meal. Consisted of an exploratory cast or two of the local beat
I was greeted by my first Grayling for 17 years, closely follwed by a nice brownie and another bigger grayling who wouldn't pose for a photo. It rekindled my long standing love of these fish i've had since i caught my first when i was 11 and it was the first decent fish i had ever caught on the fly.
Yellow mays seem to be the preffered food for the fish i targeted on the first evening and it culminated in this cracker, who was feeling somewhat arty when it chose to pose
So back to the day in question, after some product discussions and testing we decided to do what the lines were intended for and so began our foray upstream on the Annan to a very pretty upper beat.
The daytime fishing proved very challenging and the highlight was dropping a nice fish and finding some very cool dead bodies
After some coffee and deliberations the evening turned out to be a much better proposition with a good few decent fish to catch and a willingness to rise for sensible imitations.
A couple of beauties here for Mr B
This was the first
And once he settled down, his fishing Mojo came back and all sorts happened
Lots of small dimple rises proving to be more than anticipated
It was Yellow Mays again and some really nice fish Taking them, i got my best of the season so far, so well chuffed and even had someone on hand to get my ugly mug in on the act
The following day followed a similar pattern but we ventured downstream to see some beautiful water
We did get to see some beautiful slack line presentation casting courtesy of Mr Fauvet, while he practically tested some more Barrio lines
The final evening proved to be a bit trickier than the previous one, but later the fish were on the yellow mays again until the sedges came out.
I had one final Epic Brownie to end the 3 days
So a fantastic 3 days in superb company, i learned loads, had some great conversations about Hooks, flies, lines, rods and caught some cracking fish as well, it doesn't get much better, roll on the next one
Sandy
