New for 2024! Each month, we are asking our fantastic coaching team to share their wealth of experience and a top tip for the year ahead.
Thank you to Fishing for Schools Coach, Lee Hooper, for sharing his top tip for April.
Early season dry fly fishing
Spring and her first weeks are a very exciting time of year, especially with the trout season beginning on our rivers. Early season dry fly fishing can be great fun, but can often be tricky and a bit slow at the start.
Cold winds, infrequent and short hatch periods all play their part and overall temperatures are still quite cool, so the insect hatches haven't really got going. Usually, our first early season flies are the Large Dark Olive & the Grannom, but do not overlook small midges which are increasingly more abundant on our rivers and hatch all year round.
If fish won't or indeed, don’t rise to a Dun or Aa floating adult fly imitations, they can be more obliging to take emerger patterns where part of the fly body is submerged under the water to imitate the fly hatching out. Perseverance, observation and timing is key.
Tight lines and happy fishing!