Spring Day...

”He had a strange feeling as the slow gurgling stream slipped by: his old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 

Rivers are like people, in a permanent change. Some rocks or stumps remain forever in the riverbed as some scars that remind you of something that happened years ago. The human physical appearance says nothing about peoples virtues and inner qualities, in case of rivers their greatness and beauty say nothing about the gems hiding under their surface.

After more than two years, during this spring, I spent again a day on one of those chalk streams which at the first sight would not be so interesting for many fly fishermen, narrow riverbed with banks covered by vegetation where casting is a true act of acrobatic. This water offered me many wonderful moments and didn’t disappointed me this time either.

The surface activity was modest compared to other times. Small pale mayflies were in abundance, so I decided to fish a modified jingler, one of my favourite dry flies and managed to fool some grayling and few trout.

During afternoon the sky turned cloudy and the dry flies lost their appeal so I swiched on nymphs. Shortely after that, my decision was rewarded. My opponent from the other end of the line proved to be a strong one but after a few minutes I managed to see him, a colourful splendid rainbow male, a real gem. I said goodbye to this creek promising that one day I’ll come back.