In fact, the slight mistiness that has resulted in some of them makes life easier for anglers regardless of the method used.
When the water is clear anglers can spot fish easily, but fish can also spot anglers just as easily.
Anglers know where trout are most of the time even if they cannot see them, whereas anglers crop up at random in the trout’s world.
Trout just see anglers as something that might be a predator and take off to somewhere safer, so if they cannot see an angler they carry on as normal — which is usually feeding.
Brown trout are feeding flat-out at the moment, building up energy stores to cope with spawning and getting through the winter.
Rainbows just feed as normal, taking advantage of any food that comes along.
The cooling water of the autumn is the trigger for trout’s behaviour at this time of year along with shorter days and longer nights.
When a mayfly hatch occurs, usually in the afternoon, trout will be quickly on to them and feed until the hatch peters out.
I have often heard anglers bemoaning the fact there were no trout rising when they were fishing. My question is was there anything for there for them to take from the surface? Even if there was, the reason for no rises is the trout are feeding beneath the surface and probably close to the riverbed.
So, the answer is to fish a nymph close to the bottom in a part of the stream where you know there are trout and where the current concentrates the flow of food.
I fished the Taieri on Strath Taieri earlier this week.
By mid-morning it was still cool and misty with not the sign of a rise.
I put on a weighted nymph and fished through a ripple at the head of a deep pool. One fish obliged by taking the nymph, although I thought there would have been more fish there.
Fishing the next pool, which was deeper and faster, I fished as long a drift as possible to make sure the nymph was getting well down.
After a couple of casts, the line stopped and I tightened in to a fish.
Thinking that the rest of the short pool could possibly hold more fish I moved up a metre or to and was into another fish, shortly followed by a third.
Interestingly, I can only remember ever catching one fish in that pool before.
By now the sun was shining internally as well as from the sky. I moved up to the flat above.
Halfway up there is a willow hanging over the water, and I caught a good fish there at Christmas.
I stood and watched for a while and there was a dimple rise.
I dropped an unweighted nymph close to the rise and gently lifted the rod.
The best fish of the day grabbed it.
