The greyling's cousin

Well the weather service got it all wrong. Although blustery, the front passed over us with only a few drops of rain at dawn. The rest of the day was sunny and fine. We went fishing after lunch and tempted the trout and greyling of the steams. Tom and I ended back where I caught the greyling yesterday. At first we saw a few small fish - not sure exactly what they were, but then we saw a couple of larger greyling take up position in the stream, head facing into the current. Perhaps they were related to yesterday's fish. I tried a fluffy little fly with no luck and then changed to this brown stonefly pattern (with a 22mm hook), below, that hung a few inches under the surface and one of the greyling took it straight away.

Unfortunately the fish got away as we were landing it. We need to work on our landing procedures a bit better. It all gets a bit chaotic when a fish takes the fly and we fluff about bringing it in, getting the camera out and trying to take a shot. Anyway, we had fun. Tom was a bit frustrated getting his line tangled up a bit, but he was happy that he saw so many fish through his polarised glasses. If you have the patience to pause a little you will see one little fish and then by his movements, you'll suddenly see a whole lot more. We are so lucky to have such a nice chalk stream virtually all to ourselves.