Above the Colby Glen
I'm blaming John for this one as well. I fished Colby Glen with Tenkara a while back. It was successful and fun. John Collister in his phone called asked if I'd fished above the Glen. No, I hadn't. "Plenty of good pools above." Of course I did my aerial map recognisance and saw there was indeed some potential. After failing to get any higher on the Lagg, I thought, what the heck, lets give it a go.
I started in the Coby Glen right at the top. Quickly I was rewarded with fish.
The usual form with low water on the Island, The fish are there and you only have one shot. If you hook them even briefly they are gone. I missed a few like that. A fraction of a second to feel the weight of the fish and gone. You've just got to move on to the next likely looking hole.
No pools are more beautiful that the top pool of the Glen. Always fish in here. The dark notch above had one fish sitting in it. Occasionally it would rise and sip at a passing tasty morsel. Sight fishing with dry fly is one of my favourite things to do. Add in the lightness of a Tenkara set up and you have a combination for perfect presentation and minimum fish spooking.
Several times the fish came up to look at the fly and turned away. I swapped pattern to a smaller back fly. That did the trick.
A beautiful Colby Glen trout in the net. Now to start the adventure. How far upstream can I get? Immediately above the main pool are a series of falls and pools.
They do hold fish. I bumped a fish in each pool and totally failed to get a picture of the fish before they spat the barbless hooks, flipped over the edge of the net and shot off back under the bank. So far so good. Looks promising. Then you go round the corner.
The vegetation starts to close in. Still some good looking pools and glides. I swapped down to my 7ft Tenkara Zoom rod. Overhead branches, brambles and ferns started to laugh in the face of my casting. Bow and arrow casting became normal. There are fish in these pools. Keeping them on the hook is the biggest issue. Tangling the rod and line in the vegetation dislodged several fish as I worked my way up stream. It's frustrating writing without the evidence that fish do exist.
No picture, didn't happen. It's like the story of the one that got away! Obviously it was a monster. there are no monsters in this report. All the fish were to a maximum 6 inches, but feisty as heck in the narrow waters.
I tried various ways to get through. Some of the pools were very deep. Clambering over fallen trees, taking paths that promised to return to the river but instead landed you on top of an impossibly steep bank without water access. A couple of places were only just passable but I didn't fancy coming back that way.
Eventually I called it a day at the old scramble course you can see on the aerial maps. Thank goodness for phone with maps on. Once you get out this way you're in the middle of nowhere. The opening to the water you see and the small bridge, yeah? No. The bridge is all but destroyed and the water is 2 inches deep bubbling over stones. The aerial map didn't give much promise of water beyond this point on the evidence of what I was seeing.
Perhaps there are more pools. John says there were trout in the small reservoirs higher up. Maybe, but it'll be a serious expedition to fish any further than I did without help from local land owners and a quad bike!
I made my way back sticking to the edges of the farmers fields until I could attain the footpath and walk back to the car. It was exhausting but I've tried. There are fish, but they are hard to find and catch.
Rating 5.0 (2 votes)
No Comments
Add a comment:
Subscribe to comments
