30 May 2004

The River Dove is famous as one of the haunts of the author of “The Compleat Angler” Izaak Walton and his friend Charles Cotton.

 I fished the river for the first time in the late May bank holiday in 2004 at the invitation of Alistair, a club member. Starting off at Dove Cottage and a chat with another Alistair, the bailiff, we headed off to the first beat of the morning.

Dove Cottage and its frontage overlooking the Dove

This is a shortish beat bordered by a paddock with a walkers trail through it. A very pretty stretch but we made little impact and had to watch out for ramblers on the back cast.

With it being a bank holiday there were lots of them.

The first beat and Alistair

After covering the 200 metres or so of this stretch, we moved back to Dove Cottage and fished from the pack bridge downstream. I had a nice fish on a grey wulff pattern after noticing a decent mayfly hatch.

The pack bridge

Alistair moved rapidly downstream, casting and moving at almost every cast and was soon out of sight. When we met up for a pub lunch, he had had six fish, mostly on a deadly grey wulff pattern of his own. He incorporates a russet tail into the pattern which the local trout seem to target. I had only managed two by then.

After lunch, we fished a very overgrown stretch with a footpath right behind us. The technique here was to cast very lightly and if the leader caught in a tree, to draw it back slowly and gently. Pull hard and you will snag the tree. Well, it worked most of the time.

Fish were rising in a couple of pools, but were ignoring the nymphs and mayflies we tried. Alistair had a fish eventually and then I noticed the trout were taking what seemed to be black spiders dropping from the trees. I had some black klinkhamers and tried one. It took straight away, once I'd actually managed to get the fly over the lie. Alistair had also taken a fish and then tried a black spider with more success. I had another fish a while later, as most of my casts draped themselves around the trees and passing walkers made concentrating somewhat difficult.

Alistair and the first fish from the overgrown stretch

We finished the day back at the pack bridge where I had a couple more brownies on a mayfly pattern and Ali showed me just how effective his pattern really was. After taking the two fish, I had no more offers, whilst his fly was chased and taken several times.

A fine last brace with one kept for the table

At the end of the day, Alistair showed me his collection of dapping flies, used on the big Scottish lochs.

Rather than describe this badly myself, why not visit his site for more information on dapping or blow line fishing.

http://www.fish4ituk.co.uk/articles/lugg/dapping1.htm

Alistair's box of sparsely dressed dapping flies.