Matt Eastham sets off on a late summer tour of the uplands, armed with meaty streamers and a wooden sedge
IT HAPPENS EVERY YEAR ONCE summer is past its best: just as daytime river trouting becomes sketchy and unpredictable, my fishing habits edge towards the erratic, any sense of rhythm lost as I career around, searching different venues and novelty techniques to keep my interest piqued while the bankside vegetation tires and the trees begin to turn.
We are lucky in the north of England that the restless angler will always find opportunity for sport somewhere nearby, even during those low periods when it feels like the river barely has a heartbeat at all. This is a time for searching the thin blue lines of the high tributaries, or for switching focus to upland stillwaters. I’ve been doing both recently.
When it comes to specimen brown trout hunting, Yorkshire’s Malham Tarn trumps even the finest river fishing the north has to offer. I’m lucky to be part of the Friends of Malham Tarn group — acollection of dedicated individuals who, to their immense credit, have successfully implemented a workable solution to allow a return to fishing on the tarn after all activity was curtailed during the Covid-hit spring of 2020. That’s a long story in itself and not mine to tell, but this year’s resumption represented a Lazarus moment to swell the heart of anyone who has visited — or dreamt of visiting — Malham in the past. I kept my powder dry for a good while, favouring the latter part of the season to fish this special place.
Fellow FoMT warden Rob Denson and I motored out from the west boathouse on a day of ostensibly perfect conditions. A little bright at first maybe, but with cloud cover soon rolling in and a light cord ripple inviting a leisurely dry-fly approach. We drifted for hours, shooting the breeze and reminiscing over Malham days past. The fishing was characteristically dour and we toiled away for a single trout each. As Rob put it: the best rubbish day’s fishing he’d had in a long time. I could not have been happier.
Back on running water and with coordinated insect hatches largely behind us now, I’ve been flexing my muscles with a largely streamer-based approach, searching smaller tributaries for large trout that might be in the mood to chomp on something the size of a baby blue tit. Streamer techniques have gained popularity in our neck of the woods and I’ve done my share of “chucking meats”, left arm going like a bee’s wing as I jag my flies through every likely lie. With many of my local streams harbouring large populations of minnow, the results are always interesting and it’s certainly an entertaining way to fish — awild
