River Yeo below Yeoford

[pusser]

Is the 'below Yeoford' part meaning the end of the CFFC beats on the Yeo, above Uton bridge but below Foley Bridge?

[treefella]

below Yeoford means above Folly Bridge but below Yeoford. It is private fishing nothing to do with CFFC. Hope this clarifies any misunderstanding.
Cheers David

[halfstoned]

That's correct treefella , a short section above Neopardy but below Yeoford where the Yeo and Troney join. Friendly farmer let me on there through a mutual friend, small stream but seems to have a good head of fish, obviously not over fished although there are others who fish it, best part is I can walk from the house so can pop out for a short session if I can get permission! Sorry for any confusion I moved my accounts of fishing the Yeo out of the Crediton section for that very reason but should have been clearer in my description.

[halfstoned]

Spent a few blustery hours on the Yeo this afternoon. There was a fish rising at the head of this pool below but my first two efforts were well off target and my third cast caught on the wind and ended up stuck fast in the "cabbages" on the left and I had to wade up to retrieve it.


I had better luck in the next pool, which produced a nice 10" trout



The wind was a real pain so I switched to duo to help my casting as there wasn't that many fish rising. This fish took a black magic nymph.

The occasional pool had some rising fish and to save time I replaced the nymph with a CDC dry and fished twin dry fly, all but one of the fish I rose took the split wing CDC in preference to the klinkhammer ( not really a fair test as I always find the point fly does better in this situation).

[halfstoned]

The "bridge" pool is normally one of my favourites but tonight only yielded one fish lost, I was actually feeling a bit cold so decided to skip the rest of the beat and go home. Still given the conditions I was more than happy with my evenings sport.

[halfstoned]

Back on the Yeo Monday evening and she is definitely in need of some proper rain.

I really went without much expectation as I mainly wanted to test a wader repair after getting a boot full on my last trip up the Okement. I dropped the sedge fly ( still on the leader from my moorland trip) on to the still pool and amazingly a fish appeared and although I was about a week late on the strike the fish obligingly hooked itself.


Further up the pool a cast into the faster water under a tree produced a better fish

It wasn't exactly fast and furious sport but the little deer hair sedge kept the fish coming through the session, nothing big but if you could get near the fish and present the fly without scaring them most took without hesitation. Hopefully the next couple of days will put some water back in the river.

And the waders are dry again for the moment.

[halfstoned]

Went for a walk with the camera to get some shots of how low the river is and to practice uploading photos without using photo bucket.



Took a couple of shots of the sunset through the trees


And on the second one

Made me wish I'd taken the rod after all! Not sure the camera settings hadn't moved on these two photos!!😕

[halfstoned]

Despite the low water I had a few hours on the river tonight, I was hoping that last weeks rain might have livened things up and the odd fish was rising, some mayfly spinners were dipping down to lay their eggs, sedges and small gnats were hatching plus some olives, things looked pretty good. I fished like an absolute drain!! Striking too quickly, then too slowly and on one occasion not at all as I wasn't actually watching my fly but some piece of flotsam that I followed down stream as the fish rose to my fly further upstream! When I did hook a fish the rubber hooks syndrome kicked in and they invariably got off. One fish I connected with swam over to my side of the river towards some roots which I knew were there but by the time my T Rex brain told my hand to apply some side strain it was too late and the fish snagged me up and I had to wade up the pool and roll my sleeve up to get my fly back. I'm quite surprised that I got away without a dunking as I obviously crossed paths with a black cat at some point without knowing it, just off now to turn my money under a full moon!

[yeoman]

Looks like a nice bit of fishing you've got there.

[halfstoned]

Not too bad Yeoman, although I never seem to catch anything as big as some of the fish I see on here taken further down stream. The access isn't easy ( in fact its pretty wild) and there are lots of cows ( but it is a fairly large dairy farm after all) but to have it on my doorstep so I can pop out when I'm "allowed" for a couple of hours is priceless for me. Still can't beat the moor though.

[yeoman]

Yep, there's a lot to be said for local fishing....

[halfstoned]

Forgot I had taken this photo, despite Monday nights débâcle I did catch a few fish including this nice 11" wbt.

[halfstoned]

I had a quick look over the bridge in Yeoford at 8pm tonight ( Sunday) the river is the highest I've seen it this year and really pushing through, great for you guys chasing "silver tourists" but I don't think I'll be getting out this week ( more rain forecast for Wednesday). Oh well,as an old fishing friend of my Dad used to say about being washed off "you've gotta have it".

[halfstoned]

A rare day off for me today so I could finish decorating the bath room, but with four hours drying time between coats what else could I do to kill the time but pop down the river. Unfortunately Sunday's rain hadn't quite finished running off.


It was obvious that a lot of water had passed through and some of the pools had been reshaped with a lot of undergrowth flattened

I fished dry fly for the first half hour and did actually catch one fish, but a change to duo proved more successful with plenty of fish coming to hand mainly from the slacker water.

The cloudy water meant that the normal summer stealth was unnecessary and one fish ( which looked like it attacked a water boatman, do trout eat these?)was taken next to a fallen tree right under the rod tip by jinking the nymph up and down no more than four feet away and I could see the trout appear out of the murky water and nail the nymph.

Biggest fish was only 9" but all the fish seemed really fat, dinning out on worms perhaps?

[halfstoned]

Fished for a couple of hours this evening and it was tough as expected,a few late Mayfly spinners were about and the odd sedge but nothing was rising, caught some trout on the nymph but a lot of the pools had rubbish/bits of bank in them from the recent flood and the nymph kept getting snagged in areas that normally fish well. In the end I put a split wing CDC on the point and fished twin dry fly just fishing the water, managed 3 fish on dries all from the fast thin water at the head of the pool. Water seemed rather cold for the time of year! As compensation for the lack of sport nature provided a show of three sightings of a Kingfisher ( probably the same one), a buzzard lifting out of a nearby tree and flying overhead, a tiny wren landing within a few yards of me as I was about to cast and looking at me as if to say "go on turn get on with it" and finally a pair of dippers bobbing up and down in unison as I followed them up the river. Just perfect.

[halfstoned]

Fished today from 2 till 5, nothing much happening, the odd fish was rising  but they weren't easy to approach. The first fish I managed to cover without spooking it took my favourite Whickhams without hesitation.


In the next pool another riser ignored the Whickhams, had a quick look at a split wing CDC and a Griffiths gnat before finally falling for a size 20 CDC shuttlecock thing a la Pete Tyjas.




I thought this had cracked it but the next fish ignored this fly as well and eventually I had to admit defeat and move on. The little fly was hard to see especially in faster water so I changed to a small klink with the pink post as recommended by Yeoman and this brought me three more fish but the best fish of the day ( only 9") took the Whickhams in fast water at the head of " bridge pool".

Unfortunately I had a slight incident after this fish, thinking the low water would allow me to cross " bridge pool" (without retracing my steps to the tail of the pool) I stepped forward into the pool. It was immediately apparent that the water was still too deep and my right foot wasn't finding the bottom, at this point my left foot panicked and tried to retreat and before I could react the water was over the top of my wader's! One more advantage of local fishing was that I was home in 10 mins and could change into dry cloths, at least the waterproof pocket with my camera in was closed at the time.

[halfstoned]

Fished for a couple of hours today, the river was still rather coloured and if the end of the season wasn't looming on the horizon I probably wouldn't have bothered. Results weren't too bad ( I fished duo) with about 8 fish to hand , the best was a fat 11" chap who took a black magic nymph high sticked off the end of the rod tip. I felt a couple of taps which I thought were the bottom and before I decided that it might be a fish the trout had obligingly hooked itself, I'm not sure who was most surprised! One pool had a few rising fish in it but they ignored my large klink so I snipped off the nymph and tied on a tiny black Klink with a pink post as recommended by Yeoman. This fly brought me three fish on the dry fly but you had to get the fly right on the fish so they could see it,nice to get some on the dry. No pictures I'm afraid as once again one of my little cherubs had flattened the battery ( they all deny this of course).

[halfstoned]

Probably my last trip of the season today , started on duo and caught plenty on the nymph. Standard pheasant tail with copper bead.





A few fish were rising but only in the odd pool, where I could find rising fish they took the little "pink Klink" well enough but once again they wouldn't move to intercept the fly so the cast had to be accurate.


I haven't seen the Otter this year but am I right in thinking that this is his/her calling card? ( Not the paw prints but the scrapped up mound)

I hooked two good fish today ( very rough guess would put them at 10" to 12") one on nymph and one on dry both fish were obviously camera shy and threw the hook on their first jump. When I fished the reservoirs we used to drop the rod when the fished jumped to stop them coming off, do any of you guys use this on the rivers? Is there time on such a short line? Still nice to finish with some on the dry ( unless I can get up the moor on Saturday   )