I decided to fish this stretch just to see what it was like, as I’ve fished the Galphay Mill section quite a lot recently.

I parked my car up at the usual spot near the out buildings, and as I got out of the car, I immediately noticed that the river sounded louder than usual, quite uncomfortably louder. True, we had a lot of rain mid-week, but I expected the spate to have eased off down to normal by now. Even the Ure at Ripon didn’t seem too bad. I crossed the Swale last Thursday, that was very high and coloured, 2 days ago, and we haven’t had rain since.

As I approached the river, I saw that it was very high indeed, and I started worrying about my sport for the day. However, on closer examination, I saw that the water was quite clear, just very high (maybe 1 foot of additional current.).

I went all the way down to where the cow field joins the woodlands, and started fishing. I fished the outside of the bend there, where the river splits in two. I saw a trout rise and started to feel a lot better about my fishing.

I tried a small PT over this fish several times. No response, yet the trout was still rising. I tried a Rabbit Nymph and still no joy, but the fish continued to rise. Mmm, I pulled out one of my larger PTs (size 14) and plumped that 2 feet upstream of the still rising trout. A golden flash and he was on!! Feeling much better now.

I fished the long run up to the trees. I always like fishing the head waters there, and there are always trout. This day proved to be no exception. In fact the headwaters and 15 yards downstream were tenanted by furiously rising trout and I caught 2 fish here, including a large fish of 1lb 2oz. In the extra current, this fish fought very well. As soon as I hooked him, I knew he was a good fish. I struggled to land him, as there was no beach around at all!! I had to carefully turn him upside down and take him ashore that way (quite amazingly effective this method to quietly subdue a fish)

I caught 3 fish over a pound each, and ten in total, all on larger PTs. The last trout I got was extremely plump; full of eggs, and a very pretty fish. I noticed that there are two types of trout here. Dull brown coloured sparsely spotted fish, and very golden heavily spotted fish. Up at the top, there are different trout than these: some with strange large spots, and a brisk manner.

Despite the flood, the sport proved to be good. I was back home by 16:00hrs, so a "good boy" too!