A few hours to spare this evening so took my eldest lad George down to my local stretch on the Bristol Frome. As we passed the Bradley Brook we watched my favourite Brownie cruise out from under the bridge. A conservative estimate would put the fish at around 14" so I'm guessing getting on for 1.5lb. As we watched the trout another surprise hidden beneath the reflection - a nice sized Eel. Not just a troublesome bootlace but one of probably over a pound and 24" in length. We eventually moved on as light was fading. I missed a few rises in my usual pools and the fish seemed stubborn tonight. One rise was it and they would ignore the fly again whilst rising for the big naturals that were coming off. I decided to move downstream and target an area that bought me results last week. I cast to a hefty boil and suddenly all hell broke loose as a good sized fish took my nymph and set about going for every snag in the river. I played the fish long and carefully as I'd lost a big fish, perhaps this fish, the other night. Finally in the net I could see my Bristol Frome PB had been broken again and possibly the biggest wild Brownie I have caught to date. This one was I would say around the 2lb mark. A beautiful wild fish from my local river. George could hardly believe a fish of this size was rising just under our noses obscured by the low light reflections. I went on to successfully net two further good sized Brown Trout, but not like the first, on the dry.
There are some big fish in the Frome. We've had 5 over 3lbs this year and 1 touching 4. With probably 3 times this many that have made the 2lb mark.
ReplyDeleteAll fish 2lbs and over go back.
http://www.wildharvestuk.net/1/post/2013/06/wild-brown-trout-bristol-frome.html