Moorlands Fly Fisher: First pass out for 2011!

Following a mad domestic and work period, I had to have a quiet day with nothing else to focus on and somewhere with no distractions or opportunities for interruptions.

The domestic situation was created by a combination of issues, one being the work on the recently acquired cottage/former cow shed and dairy next door, and the other half, Mel, having two massive consultancy jobs to complete and deadlines rapidly looming.

My work pressure was setting-up and delivering a three day induction residential programme for Nottingham Business School with 30 International Masters students. These programmes take over my life when they are on, a week to prep and three days to deliver. When they finish I start sleeping properly again! Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining as the programmes, staff on the job and clients make them great fun to be part of and a privilege to work with.

So, a phone call to Al and arrangements were made to meet in Hartington for 9.30 am. I was a few minutes late as I had to sort out a boob we had made with the electrician. Arriving in Hartington I found Al’s Bongo parked outside the ‘Olde Cheesy Shopee’. I found him inside buying some special beers and a bottle of Mead. I felt it was a little early for a drink so I went to the local village store for some lunch time sustenance.

Our plan was to try the Dove at Bank Top, beat 2 on the Peak Passport scheme, and see if we could find us some Greyling. We are both Greyling virgins so it could be interesting.

Derbyshire and the Staffordshire Moorlands had been very wet three days ago and the evidence was all over the banks. The river still looked high though a lot lower than it had been! It was still coloured and visibility was only around 2 feet if you could spot the shingle beds.

We both went upstream of the farm, working our way up to the northern extent of the beat. We fished what we thought were the fishiest bits, the most promising looking area, to me, was the ford a few hundred metres up valley from the farm.

Al spotted an eel, all of three inches, and that was the only fishy thing we saw all day, but we had a lovely first visit to Bank Top on this very mild and slightly overcast day. He also spotted some tracks in the recent silt deposits. We were not sure if they were Otter or Mink. Unfortunately, I suspect that they were the latter.

Perhaps the Dove was just a little too high, maybe we were looking in the wrong places, possibly we were using the wrong tactics – we had plenty of reasons for a re-visit soon. I was using a duo of Czech nymph and GRHE (Gold ribbed Hares ear).