River levels started and ended the month a bit higher than June of last year, but we had a big spate mid-month this year which gave us plenty of water for the second half of the month.
The day or two after a spate are generally pretty poor. The water is coloured up with very little visibility and many parts of the river are very fast moving.
It can however be a great invitation for the salmon to come up the river and creates opportunities for sea trout to move around and up through our beats.
As the water levels drop and the water clears in the following days, it can be the best chance for a salmon. It’s always an exciting time and Tom spotted a huge fish jump in Bridge Pool. He estimated the fish to weigh well into high double digits, but of course he’s an angler, so make of that what you will!
Post Spate Conditions
June Fishing & Flies
The weather throughout June was highly variable. While is stayed reasonably warm, the evenings could cool off quickly. The variability led to some inconsistency in the fishing and a 20+ day could easily be followed by a blank.
We saw fewer hatches in June than we did in May and rises were often spotty. Fortunately, if you did spot a rise and got a fly to it, the fish seemed happy to oblige. As we’ve been observing all year, the average size of fish caught has been notably bigger than last year. There are still plenty of 5-6″ fish around, but a there have been a lot more 10″+ fish this year, and this month we caught several up to about 15″.
On the hotter, sunnier days, guests who were out first thing in the morning and just before sunset generally did very well with several returns in the mid-teens to mid 20s. Many of the bigger fish came off the sides of the banks. Casting to within a foot of the bank often wouldn’t produce anything, but casting within 3 or 4″ of the same bank, or bouncing a fly of the roots of a tree had a much better rate of seeing a nice fish take a fly. More often than not, the big fish tucked into the banks take the fly as a lazy sip, expending the smallest amount of energy.
Mayfly patterns were the most successful again this month. Sizes 14 and 12, especially in brown-olive, but also olive and off whites worked well. Small red-brown patterns were very effective when we had hatches of the small mays of the same colouring, which we think are Late/False March Browns – or at least look very similar.
Perhaps the surprise fly of the month was the Stimulator. This was an ideal pattern to fish when there was little visible activity from the fish, and seemed to rise fish when nothing else seemed to work. Despite this being somewhat reminiscent of a sedge, none of the normal sedge patterns in the box performed well. There were plenty of caddis showing on the water, but so far this year, caddis imitations have not come into their own.
The other option when nothing was showing was to fish under the surface. None of our anglers were hugely successful on wet flies or nymphs, but they did produce some fish. The usual suspects were the most successful with Gold Ribbed Hares Ear and Pheasant Tail Nymphs leading, followed (finally) by black nymphs. Black nymphs really haven’t produced a lot of fish this year, so its nice to see them finally beginning to have some limited results.
Terrestrials, like Paul Proctor’s APT took a few fish, and Greenwell’s Glory, Sparkle Dun, Black CDC Emerger were amongst the other flies in catch returns. We also managed the usual hook ups when swingling Sea Trout and Salmon flies, including the WMD fly, fished at the Arundell Arms Hotel, Cascade and Ally’s Shrimp.
An evening on Church Beat
Tom and Matt and some of the guests spent a fair few days chasing Sea Trout and Salmon this month, especially in the week or so after the spate. Several have been spotted and we’re convinced there’s still one or two hanging around in the deeper waters of Church and Chenson beats. Still nothing landed, but we are undeterred!
Overall we had roughly a third less fishing days for June than in May but still managed a respectable 254 wild brown trout up to 15″. The river is still a bit higher than the same time last year, but we wouldn’t say no to a small top up in early July.
Buglife
Over the course of the month, we’ve seen a general trend towards fewer and smaller invertebrates. We’ve been paying a lot more attention recently, trying to better identify exactly what species we have on the Taw, but it turns out entomology is bloody complicated! We’ll get better at it, but in the meantime, we’ll keep sending photos to Gerald with the caption “what’s this?”.
Brown-olive patterns have been doing particularly well and we’re seeing what appear to be Green Drakes and Yellow Mays around, but had less luck on these imitations. On several evenings we’ve had large hatches of small red-brown mayfly, which can make for an exciting hour before dark! We also found a very happy spider with about 50 of these guys stuck in its web.
While we continue to see plenty of caddis, our Elk Hair, Retirer, Sedgehog and other caddis/sedge style patterns haven’t been getting results [edit – Tom got on 8 on 2 July on an tiny Elk Hair Caddis pattern, so maybe things are about to change!]. They are coming up for the Stimulator, which has some resemblance to a Caddisfly, but is more reminiscent of a Stonefly, which we’ve only seen a few of so far this year.
Tom and I are in the final stages of our 5 fly selection for July as part of our Tom vs Matt series. This month we’re changing things up a bit and will each select one fly from our own selection and two from our opponent, and both fish the resulting 6 flies for the month.
Other Bits
We were delighted to host the Fly Culture Magazine “Gathering” earlier on 19 June. Pete and Emma Tyjas organised the event which included beer and burgers and a wonderful line-up of amazing speakers. The event took place down in our lower field beside the river, with around 75 guests enjoying a lovely summer’s evening chatting about fishing!
We were also happy to host the Westcountry Rivers Trust for the training and education session for river pollution monitoring. We joined 35 other delegates to learn how to properly and safely sample the river water and report our findings to the database. We shall be doing this on a monthly basis going forward.
A second group from Westcountry River Trust came to sample the river at the end of month, looking for evidence of Shad in the Taw. They took samples from which they can apparently test for DNA traces to determine whether there are Shad present. Finger crossed they get the results they are looking for!
We also joined the Riverfly Partnership, part of the Freshwater Biological Association, with a view to learning more about our river, it’s smaller inhabitants, and what we can do to help protect this wonderful resource we have. We’re looking forward to receiving some training, but in the meantime we have a library of books on the way. Look forward to liberal use of Latin names (not necessarily the right ones) in future reports!
Fish at The Fox & Hounds
If you’d like to join us for fly fishing at The Fox & Hounds, day tickets can be added to any stay. It costs £15 for a half day or £30 for a full day. Full day fishing is from the time of arrival of the the day of arrival until 3pm the following day.
We have a special two day Fishing Break package for single anglers which includes Dinner, Bed & Breakfast in a Cosy Double Room plus fishing for £159/night (£175 Saturdays). Or for something a bit special, our Ultimate Fishing package features a 2 night stay in our Luxury Treehouse with fishing for two anglers sharing a beat. Please contact us for terms, conditions and details, or to book your stay by calling 01769 580345. Please see our Offers & Events page for more information.
June Fly Fishing Gallery
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