Firefly-Bamboo Fly Rods

Traveled down to Hampshire yesterday to fish the preeminent chalk stream the river Test. Dry fly and nymphing the order of the day. We arrived around 8am and on inspection of the river it looked pretty colored because of all the rain we have had. Had a coffee and tackled up, deciding to fish light tackle with my Orvis 7' weight 4 Trout Bum rod.

I walked the bank and started to see a few rises. After slogging away for some time I was into a fish. Straight away I could see it was a good size Grayling. Caught on a Dry Blue Winged Olive size 16 fly. Chuffed with myself I returned the fish and had a break for lunch.

At around 2pm there was a good mayfly hatch so I changed my dry fly to a Mayfly Green Drake size 10. I cast across rise after rise to no avail. I think the trout had gorged themselves on mayfly for a few days so gave up and switched back to the Dry Blue Winged Olive.

After a few casts to a rise I was into a my second fish. A rainbow trout of around 2lb. The rainbow put up a good fight and I landed and bagged my dinner. Great sport on light tackle.

Well I went at it for another couple of hours to try and get my river Test grand slam but that elusive brown trout just wasn't biting today. So I packed up and headed home.

I will return to have a go at netting that big brown some time soon.

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