Well finally the new season has rolled around . And conditions for the river we chose on opening day were fantastic !

A favourite wee hill country stream was the destination to fish with a 6am start time required .

Carl made the sandwhiches(pretty good too id like to add)and brought the coffee this time and away we headed .

We pulled in beside the river and parked up ,had a quick coffee then proceeded to gear up for the day ahead.

Long leaders of aprox 12ft were tied on with around 3ft of 5lb Flurocarbon tippet, then a bouyant #12 parachute dry fly and attached to that was a #14 lightly weighted NILF pattern.

A plan to walk downstream for an hour or so and then fish back upstream to the car was decided upon,so off we went excited at the prospect of a great day fishing ahead to fish that hadnt been disturbed by anglers for the previous 5 months .

Carl getting into position to cast to a nymphing fish in the centre of the run.

The fish we came across early in the day were all nymphing in the shallow edges and in the tails of the pools, and as the day warmed up fish begain to feed off the surface,I managed to fool 2 with a small dark bodied #16 parachute dry fly, landing one and being broken off on the other as the fish once hooked headed straight for the nearest snag, a large boulder in the centre of the stream, going up and around then back down stream towards and past me at a high rate of knots !

Carls stunning 4lb brown,taken on a hares ear nymph.

Even though these fish hadnt seen an angler for several months, a careful aproach and an accurate first up presentaion of our fly was needed to fool these wary fish, we were both guilty of poor first up casts at times and paid the price, either putting fish down or watching them bolt for cover !