Big Sea Trout - Attempt No.1 (River Hodder)

Hard work on the Hodder!

Had a great time staying at the Inn at Whitewell with two mates the night before my first ever sea trout attempt. Although a walk down the beat of the River Hodder the evening we arrived showed the river to be down to the bare bones, there was still some decent fish showing and I woke the morning after full of hope.

I've never been a big wet fly man, but gave it my best for seven back-breaking hours with not even a sniff. I tried the lot, Teal, Blue and Silver; the biggest Peter Ross I've ever seen; Secret Weapons; Tandem Lures - you name 'em I tried them. To be fair my 7 wt gear was just too under-gunned to cope with the big wide slack pools and it was soon obvious that fishing flies in the daytime for sea trout is a national lottery odds situation.

The boys were picking up sprats in the riffles and starting to give out stick for my blankety blank efforts. A quick switch of tactics brought two brownies, one of 8oz and another about nil oz to silence the doubters but I'd run out of gas to stay until dark.

I'll be back as Arnie says, but later in the year, when there's much more water and a double handed salmon rod in the boot of the car!

Mr Fish