The storms of last week gave way to two days of heavy rain and I was tempted not to bother taking the ten mile drive to my syndicate water, but the river was only up a few inches, with a tinge of colour back in the water, when I arrived for an afternoon session.

The bank side foliage was still wet from a recent shower and like the trees, was putting on a growing spurt to catch up on what had been declared as the coldest spring for 50 years. Now the norm, there were no apparent fish rising and I decided to begin fishing with my Black Devil nymph in a streamy run, working it along the edges, taking a small wild fish straight away.

Searching out the deeper water under the bank, the Black Devil had accounted for another couple of wild browns, when fish began rising to an olive hatch in the pool above. Off came the nymph and on went a ribbed Klinkhammer, taking more small browns in quick succession, as I waded up between overhanging trees. The Klinkhammer was now waterlogged and I tied on one of my winter creations, a Deer Hair Emerger, which was taken by a much better trout, that ran me round the pool, before coming to the net.

A splash alerted me to some large fish rising in the deep pool upstream and I made my way along the bank for a better look. Two fish were making swirling bulges, as they searched out nymphs, ignoring mayflies that drifted down on the surface. I slid down to the water’s edge, thankful that the greenery had grown a foot since my last visit and keeping low made a cast to the furthest fish, watching it stand on it’s tail, turning over as it took the emerger. A side strike and the placid stream erupted as the hook went home. This was a good fully finned stockie and my 7 ft rod now came into it’s own absorbing the shocks from this hard charging trout as it ran the length of the pool and back again. Giving line when needed, the runs got shorter, until I was able to slide him over the net.

While I waited for this 16 inch fish to recover in the shallows and swim off, rain began falling again, signalling the end of the rise and I walked back down river,  hearing a splash among the trees from a good fish. Now out of the shower, I waded up to the pool, but no more rises gave the fish away and I flicked the emerger under the overhanging branches, searching among the roots, until a take and an airborne trout began the hardest fight of the afternoon, as it frantically searched out every root and hollow, snagging me once, slack line fooling it to come out of hiding and into my net.

Smaller than the stockie at 14 inches, what it lacked in weight, this wild brownie made up for in speed, having plenty of go left to immediately swim off  back to the pool on release. The shower soon passed and the rises switched on again for another twenty minutes bringing more wild browns between 8 and 12 inches, then turned off, as the grey skies began to empty their contents, sending me home to join the rush hour traffic.