waiting's over

I've got to admit that the 16th june didn't really mean much to me upto a few years ago.All my local waters are open year round and so the 16th became insignificant.But all that changed about 4 years ago when i started to fish the river.Suddenly the 16th took on a new meaning and i'd spend the day's from the 15th March waiting for the season to start.Although the river doesn't produce large fish(13lb's the biggest i've had from there)what they lack in size they make up with in numbers and fighting ability.So it was that i was up this morning at 3.45am and off to the river for a few hour's before work with the fly rod.First cast started off the season with a fish around 4lb not big but great fun another 5 fish followed in the next couple of hours biggest around 7lb before the sun came over the trees and it was time for work.



Just a word on the tackle i use,the rod's a 9ft 10#,reel a lamson litespeed3.5,line 11# floating pike line,leader 6ft of 25lb amnesia and a wire trace of 20lb drennan green pike wire and flies i tie myself mostly bucktail deceivers in grey/white,red/black and orange/yellow which cover most situations other essentials i use are an orvis stripping basket,polaroid glasses and chad caine gloves to stop raker rash to the hand's as all the fish are held in the water whilst unhooking(although i forgot to put them on this morning and paid with a cut left hand)