By Geoff Hadley
I first met Wychwood's (new) Drift range of specialist river rods (and reel) on the banks of The Peacock Fly Fishing Club's river Derwent in August 2023 when Tom Finney invited my fellow Team Wychwood members Glen Pointon, Chris Flay and I over to try out some prototypes.
I was late.
Fairly standard for me, to be honest, but at least I had the valid excuse of getting held up on a job in Stoke this time.
The contrast between my morning work in an urban garden and the magnificent Derbyshire countryside couldn't have been more marked. As Glen said to me on our first meeting, almost a decade ago, "Derbyshire is Different Gravy!" and the countryside of the Haddon Estate, in which the Peacock club operates, is next level again.
I soon found Tom and Chris, nymphing in a pool below the confluence of the Wye and Derwent, whereas Glen had wandered off downstream with a 9ft 4wt looking for rising fish to throw a dry fly at.
Tom greeted me with the news that they'd already done most of the promo stuff, pressed a Drift Nymph combo (10ft #3 weight with matching Drift reel) into my hand, and bid me take up his spot in the run while he got back on the camera. I have a bit of history with this spot, having lost sizeable grayling at the head of the run not just once, but on three separate occasions. I made the fatal error of mentioning this to the lads now...
Chris waded ashore to give me a bit of space and we shared a mid-stream handshake and a quick catch up before I waded a touch further out to cover the prime run.
I was immediately impressed with the balance and responsiveness of the Drift Nymph outfit and I soon found out how that translates to playing fish as a string of gorgeous, hand sized browns and grayling came to hand while I fished my way up the run with a couple of weighted nymphs on a French-style leader set up.
I was about two thirds of the way up the run when a shout of "Heyup, Geoff lad!" announced Glen's reappearance. He hadn't managed to find any risers but he engulfed me in one of his famous bear hugs and the banter and mickey taking began to flow in earnest; and swiftly picked up in intensity when I once again hooked a large grayling, in that self-same spot, only to have it slip the hook after a couple of headshakes and a sudden dive.
To paraphrase Die Hard's John McClane "How does the same *stuff* happen to the same guy four times?"
I stomped my way out of run and gave myself up to the inevitable stream of mickey taking and a few words of condolence.
Meanwhile Chris had taken charge of the 9ft 5wt Drift outfit, tied on a heavily weighted streamer and pinged it across to a gap in the trees that he'd had his eye on all morning. The hit was almost instantaneous and it was immediately obvious that this was a BIG fish! Chris held hard and stepped backwards across the flow to force the trout out from it's sanctuary. The rod took on an impressive fighting curve as the fish lunged for every snag it could see but Chris worked it foot by foot across the flow - accompanied by shouts of "Goooo on, Chris!" and "Streamer ******!" - until it was in the nearside slack and ready for the net.
A few moments later, after one last ditch run, it was handshakes all round and Tom unslung the camera for a Team Wychwood victory shot with a true river Derwent specimen brownie.
After a few minutes of rest in Chris's Brookman landing net the trout powered off, no doubt back to its lair beneath the trees under the far bank.
It probably wasn't going to get better than that on the Derwent and Glen was itching to find some rising trout to throw dry flies to, so a halt was called and we yomped back to our motors for the short trip up the road to Bakewell.
We made a quick stop for fish and chips before finding a couple of benches alongside the river to eat our tea, watch the water, and feed the Bakewell pets - that's trout, not just the ducks! If you've never visited Bakewell, it's well worth the trip just to look into the river through town.
Fortified and rested we rigged up the 10ft 3 weight, 9ft 4 weight and 9ft 5 weight Drift rods with long, light leaders and delicate dry flies and strode forth onto the very first river in the world that introduced the rule "Dry Fly Only".
Now I know it sounds stuffy and, possibly, elitist; but the Dry Fly Only rule is in fact a conservation measure. The Derbyshire Wye is a unique and beautiful environment with an entirely wild, self-sustaining fish population since stocking was halted in 2003. It is also the only river in the country where, for over 130 years now, wild rainbow trout have bred and thrived. The rule is intended to give the river's trout and grayling sanctuary whenever they're not feeding at the surface and their abundance is testament to the fact that the rule works and also to the very hard work of river keeper Jan Hobot and his team.
If you'd like to find out more about the Derbyshire Wye you can do so here: www.thepeacockflyfishingclub.co.uk
It didn't take us anytime at all to find feeding fish, rising to a veritable smorgasbord of olives, sedges, midges, and other insects, and our rods were soon bending to the fights of some beautiful wild rainbow and brown trout, and even a grayling or two. Flicking out small dries on long leaders can be a tricky affair but with our Drift rods matched to Featherdown Floater lines and 12ft Camo Mode leaders tapering to 4lbs with Silk Mode tippets the Drift rods performed well beyond our expectations, presenting small dries at close and long range with an ease that belies their price tag.
We all caught some splendid wild fish, even Tom, who would be the first to admit that this style of fishing is somewhat out of his comfort zone (just don't ask him about ducks!). The star of the show this afternoon, however, was definitely Glen. I've never met anyone with such a natural, innate talent for stalking wild fish with dry flies. He has an ability to spot large fish, rising, in places that other anglers miss; and he did it again today. While Chris, Tom, and I wandered the riverside, chatting, joking, and casting to the obvious rises, taking a fish here and there and generally soaking up the atmosphere of the evening, Glen stalked the banks with the eye of a specimen hunter; eventually stopping in a really awkward spot beneath a large beech tree opposite an overhanging willow.
The drooping branches of the willow formed a sort cave over the river and some quirk of current slightly upstream had a created a small back eddy, perhaps four feet long and a foot wide, with a seam between it and the downstream flow. In that tiny eddy came the subtlest of rises. Barely a dimple showed on the rivers surface as a trout poked the merest tip of its nose out to sip down the floating morsels that were being conveyed on the river to it. This was the relaxed rise of a fish that was supremely confident in its environment and safety. Glen nodded across the river as we came near "Big fish, that" and without further explanation he crept into a position that might just enable him to get a cast across the river toward it. Tom, Chris and I crouched down a little way off, suddenly aware that something special was about to unfold...
As well as overhanging branches both near and far Glen also had to cope with one of the Wye's strange vagaries of current, in this case a much slower flow of water along the nearside bank caused by a half-fallen willow in the river a few yards upstream. A conventional cast was utterly impossible, so Glen employed what I can only attempt to describe (and not really do justice to) as a half roll cast - half flick over his left shoulder (while holding the rod in his right hand) with an upstream mend just as the line was settling on the water. Conventional it most certainly was not.
You'll never see a cast like it in a manual, and even from where we were it looked as though the only possible result could be a tangled leader and a spooked fish, but the line sailed out and the leader and fly landed as softly as if he'd dropped it from his hand.
That first cast fell well short, as did his second.
The fish continued to rise.
His third cast looked close to us but a fierce curse from Glen told us that this too had fallen short.
The fish continued to rise.
The fourth cast sailed out and the fly floated on the crease of current and the trout rose...
...to a natural that was riding the current just a touch further over into the eddy!
"I reckon that one was about an inch off being' right" called Glen, steeling himself for another shot.
The fish continued to rise.
Casts five and six still elicited no response but on Glen's seventh cast he let out a cry of "That's the one!"
His little olive imitation drifted on the very edge of the willow canopy, an inch or so into the little back eddy. It was one of those moments that, as a fly angler, you dream of: The perfect cast to the perfect spot, the perfect drift culminating in, miracle of miracles, the perfect take.
With just the barest ripple of a rise Glen's fly simply wasn't there anymore. He lifted the rod with a swift, firm strike and the water below the trailing willow branches boiled as the fish shook its head in apparent confusion.
The trout soon came to its senses, setting off on a blistering upstream run that set the Drift reel screaming!
At first Glen let the fish have its head but he soon had to clamp down as it made a beeline for that upstream willow, the rod bending deep into its length to bring the trout up short of its intended sanctuary.
Foiled in its first escape attempt the fish changed tactics and took to the air, leaping and tail walking, its head shaking, mouth agape as it tried to rid itself of Glen's fly. There followed several minutes of battle along these lines. Glen foiled every run with heavily applied side strain and kept the tension on whenever the trout took to the air, which it did again and again culminating in a final defiant tail walk straight into Glen's waiting net. They probably heard the cheer that went up over in Buxton!
Tom, Chris and I gathered round to admire Glen's beautiful prize. As pristine a wild brown trout as ever, you could hope to see. Tom got a few photos for the Team Wychwood album and, after being rested in his net for a suitable amount of time after such a hard fight, Glen released the fish none the worse for our shared experience.
It was genuinely one of the best feats of angling I've ever witnessed.
With the sun dropping beyond the Derbyshire Peaks and the prototype Drift rods having been well and truly tested, we decided to call it a day and head back to the cars for our separate journeys home.
We said our goodbyes with handshakes, hugs, and promises to get together and fish again soon, and more than a little mickey taking.
I drove away with a 9ft 5wt and a Drift Nymph outfit firmly tucked into the back of my van and a whole host of ideas about
where and when I might use them next...
To be continued...
