Two personal best Trout, Yorkshire

I took the whole family to Yorkshire to visit my mum and dad for a few days but still managed to get out on the bank for a session. With the car rammed full of clothes, pushchair, toys, high chair etc the space was limited for angling gear so decided to use the opportunity to travel really light and fly fishing is ideal for just that. My fly rod is a four piece travel rod and a bag containing a reel, my fly box and net left plenty of room for the children's paraphenalia.

My Uncle Ken also resides in God's county and is a very keen fluff chucker so I called on him to use his local knowledge to choose a suitable spot to fish and knew he would join me for the day.

He said to meet him at Bellflask fishery, about 10 miles from my old folk's place, at 7.45am. I arrived at 7.35am and he was already there, tackled up and raring to go. 

Bellflask is a stunning old gravel pit which is situated alongside the upper reaches of the river Ure and I had to have peak over at the river, I couldn't resist as it is the river I learned to fish first, but further down stream where the Barbel and Chub are more prominent. It looked stunning but sadly the stretch is private.

It was a typical Yorkshire summers day, blowing a gale, and being an inexperienced fly angler I opted for a sheltered spot with the breeze behind me. I find casting difficult enough without the wind flying across me at any angle. I struggled through the morning but had scant consolation as so did the other more experienced anglers. At around 11.30am hope was renewed as Uncle Ken hooked and landed a monster Brown Trout which we guessed at around 6lb. A stunning fish that we were allowed to take home but we followed the unwritten code of the Brownies and unhooked her and let her swim off, on Ken's instruction. I agreed it is the done thing.

An hour later and Ken moved swim so I jumped in to his and promptly landed a Rainbow of 2lb 7oz. I had changed to a bluebottle type looking fly and straight away next cast I landed a 2lb 12oz Blue Trout, my first ever so a pb, also my biggest ever Trout. They put up brilliant scraps on my light 5 weight fly rod.

I could relax now and though I soldiered on with the same fly nothing else was interested in it so I swapped about both flies and swims. Nothing else worked but I did not care. The bag limit is four but if I had caught more they would have been released, these two were ample and perfect for a forthcoming BBQ. My son Max seemed impressed with them too when I showed him later, his sister wasn't!