Failed C&R

Friday evening, an early tea and down at Barkston by 6.45pm.  Lovely evening but very little rising?

The water was very very clear!

Yep that is through the water, without a polarising filter!
To fishing, my usual klink put down a couple of fish that I could see, mainly due to my poor casting as well as the frequency of casts. Noticed a lot of small caddis above the water and realised they were hatching, ....dur!  Changed to an F fly, too much weed for a nymph, and anyway I wanted to use a dry.  That drew more interest but my strike rate was appalling.  Until I spotted the sporadic rise of a brown trout under an overhanging branch at the other end of a deepish, weed-filled pool from me.  This required a very flat side cast into the 12" gap below the branch.  Well bug&*r me if it didn't take it, head, tail and all - a right splasher, which charged all over the pool collecting about a 1lb of weed with it.  I eventually slipped the net under it all, and pulled out the weed.  That's tricky while holding rod & net!

A right little corker, but where was the fly?  On further investigation it had deep hooked itself way down and I really struggled with forceps to remove the barbless hook (which I hadn't crimped down as well as it should have been).

The poor thing was pretty much done in so unfortunately I felt that it would be better to tap it on the head and take it for the pot, something I very rarely do with the river caught fish.

Missed a few more takes after that but my heart wasn't in it any more.  Anyway I was only wearing a teeshirt and I was getting pretty cold so jacked it in and watched the sunset on the way home.

POSTSCRIPT:
The said fishy, seasoned with salt & pepper and fried in lots of butter was absolutely delicious.