Just when you think you have seen it all….

It was a very pleasant afternoon, overcast but warm and still.

I decided to take a look at the Shag River so I grabbed my gear and off I went.  It was as I had thought, still and warm with a bit of a mayfly hatch going on.

I saw a few fish, hooked and lost one but it was quite hard going the water is very clear and the level has dropped considerably which tends to make the fish pretty wary.

I started heading back toward the car fishing the likely looking places, again I saw a few fish but in the second last pool I found a good sized brown trout.  I was caught a little out in the open, I had a good cover of gorse behind me but was squatting there with no cover in front while the fish slowly moved upstream, it was feeding on nymphs or other insects low in the water.

I waited while the fish passed by less than 5 metres in front of me, I hardly dared to breathe for fear of spooking it.  It looked like a good fish 4-5lbs easily.  After what seemed like an eternity it had got far enough upstream for me to try a cast, no sooner had my fly landed on the water and the fish turned to look when a duck exploded from the gorse behind me.   I nearly shit myself it gave me such a fright… Worse was to come it hit the water and started the fake injured duck routine which involves splashing across the pool, the fish took off as did the other three in the area.

I stood up and told the duck I thought it was very rude to do that to me (or something like that) all of a  sudden the rod jumped in my hand, I had just managed to think hell there must have been another fish which I didn’t see that has grabbed the fly and hooked itself when the duck started quacking and splashing like crazy.

I discovered that the duck had gone under my flyline and had managed to get hooked in the wing, this is not how things usually go.  Eventually I managed to drag the duck in and with the aid of some small pliers I was able to remove the hook and let the stupid bird go on it’s way, the fake injury is something the mother duck does to lead you away from her young which is why I let it go, later in the season it might have been duck for dinner instead of trout.