As the days lengthen thoughts turn to the onset of better weather and for anglers the trout season, and especially, the dry-fly season.

The past two seasons at Mulberry-Whin have, due to the heavy rainfall, not been easy, but this on a chalk stream like Driffield Beck, mainly affects the anglers comfort on the banks. The river, with the high flows from the fully charged aquifer, has been in excellent condition with clean gravels showing amongst the superb weed-growth. This weed growth has helped give some super hatches with large dark olives showing now through to April, then the medium olives and blue wings have started with small spurwings and pale wateries later in the season. This with the good shows of sedges and terrestrials, such as the hawthorn in May and flying ants late in the year, have seen fish rising freely giving first class sport to the dry fly.

Anglers at Mulberry-Whin are tested even more than usual in these conditions, as the strong flows over the weed creates a multitude of riffles and eddies which will cause drag on the fly line and destroy the presentation of the artificial. The artificials on Mulberry-Whin which did well last year were the greenwells, ginger quill, rough olive, GRHE and black and olive spinners.

For the terrestrials black gnats and black spiders and for the sedges I find a big bushy hackled wickhams will cover many patterns. On the difficult days (most days!) klinkhammers, F flies or other CDC emergers work really well when the fish are taking the emerging nymph and are barely breaking the surface.

The nymph fishing can, if casting to a seen fish, be really testing and pheasant tail nymphs and GRHE are good all rounders. In the heavy flows, small nymphs with a small bead head are necessary to get the nymph down. Very small nymphs of this type, if held across the flow just under the surface, can be productive.

Again the secret to fishing Mulberry-Whin is presentation, more than pattern, with dries and nymphs down to 20 22 sometimes necessary. These, especially the dries MUST be matched to light tippets i.e. co-polymer or flouro-carbon down to 2lb.

On the river itself work is in hand to improve access on the bottom beat round Otter Wood. This will give access to the fishing through the wood, and about fifty yards below the present boundary. This will add about one hundred and fifty one hundred and seventy yards of unfished water to the bottom beat.

All this is of course without mentioning the superb grayling fishing available all year round. In the last three weeks fish of 2lb and 2lb.12ozs, among others, have been taken.

Plans for river narrowing, meanders and gravel addition are now well advanced after talks with Natural England and The Environment Agency. When complete these should extend the natural spawning areas (redds) downstream so increasing the wild trout production on Mulberry-Whin.

I hope this report will whet the appetites of our clients for the new season and if you havent tried Mulberry-Whin yet why not get in touch and enjoy a special days fishing. If you need any further information regarding present conditions please do not hesitate to contact me for an up to date report, at any time during the coming year.

Tight lines

Trevor Londesborough

Posted on : 01 April 2009