The water was still showing a hint of color and the flow was a tad higher than I would like for safe wading, but the river was certainly fishable.
I first started fishing the margins with a team of lightly weighted flies, drawing response from a number of brown trout. This came to me as a surprise of sorts, for I fish this river mostly later in the season when the brownies are otherwise occupied and the when the river seems to belong to grayling only.
For now it seemed that the situation was reversed, and brownies both big and small were the most active fish. When I changed my tactics and started to probe the bottom of the deep pools I finally managed to connect with some grayling. They were hugging the bottom and not yet in their prime condition, but already showing some appetite and seemed to be recovering well from spawning and the June floods.
The best performing fly seemed to be a simple orange headed wet fly. This little spider outfished my other flies by order of magnitude, and the only challenge seemed to be how to get it down to the level of the fish. A heavy Tungsten beaded fly a the point seemed to be the answer, with the "catching" wet fished on a short dropper.
The tie:
#10 Kamasan B160 hook, debarbed
6/0 Danville's Flymaster thread, red
red fox dubbing
holographic Gütermann tinsel
quail body feather
a light touch of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails
