After a fantastic start to July things just kept getting better and better including a record run of migratory fish for the month, a staggering 10,995 fish. This would obviously go on to have a knock on effect of catches as every man and their dog would be on the river, unfortunately for me a busy month of shows, events and filming wouldn’t see me guiding or fishing much, but when the chance arose i was on the river quicker than you could say Fish-on!
I literally fished 3 or 4 times the whole of July but still managed to land 2 stunning sea liced fish which actually came 20 minutes apart from each other on you guessed it, a Stokoe shrimp. As always both fish were returned after a few quick snaps to carry on their journey upstream.
July also saw me guiding a familiar face, a good friend and renowned world famous DJ Nick Warren for the second year running as he went in search of more Tyne silver! Even in hard conditions he managed to hook and land an absolute stunning 15lb cock fish with the bonus of it falling to a Stokoe shrimp variant I literally tied the night before.
As the month came to an end guests were doing us proud by getting amongst some good numbers of fish but unfortunately loosing a lot, entirely down to the fish and not the way the fish were being played, iv’e actually never known a year like it for loosing fish its been ridiculous. Three guests i had Scott, Archie and John experienced this first hand on their first days fishing loosing 3 fish in the space of an hour, as always i never know who’s more upset myself of the angler ha ha, but as always things can change in an instant and a couple of days later they managed 3 fish in a crazy 30 minutes, obviously the fish gods were on our side that day!
Fly’s of the month up and down the river were = Calvin shrimps (especially hot head tubes) Cascades and Stokoe shrimp tubes!