At the bottom of the garden.

I'm very fortunate so far this season; I'm managing to get out at least once a week and I've explored a few new areas. This afternoon I tried another new area, in fact this is a tributary of my club river, it is purely spring-fed and wouldn't look out of place on Hampshire. On the section we have permission to fish, the brook runs along the bottom of several gardens, it is the just what you would wish to have running at the bottom of your garden.

The first part of the brook flows fast, with good depth as it narrows to under three foot across. I elected to fish my herl, flash & drab klink due to the pace. There was a horrible, squally wind blowing across the river making fly placement difficult, patiently waiting for a break in the wind, saw me get the fly on target after a couple of attempts.

Much to my surprise the klink disappeared in a swirl, a quick tightening of the line hooked the fish; it gave a good account of itself in the pacey flow. The trout was lean but was a good ten inches long and most certainly a wild fish; the brook has never been stocked.

Further upstream I could see a number of fish rising. Most of the them were positioned close in the edge. This section is evenly paced, the surface smooth except for boils caused by beds of ranunculus.
There were a few small up-wings hatching, possibly small spur-wing as they were quite pale; I did see one large dark olive lift off. Several times I saw trout leap clear of the water chasing duns as the left the water.

As I watched the rising fish I changed flies and tied on a pale version, size sixteen Barbour paraloop dun. Again the wind caused me issues, blowing my fly across onto the wrong side of the brook. Again I had to be patient and wait for breaks. I slowly made my way upstream, picking off fish that were rising and others that were unseen. Cursing quite often, many fish failed to connect or stay on for long, but I managed another six fish up to eight inches, with as many, if not more lost.