Off to the upper reaches of our beat on the River Seven in North Yorkshire for my third session on the water this year. The omens were not bad. A decent downpour had put a tinge of colour in the water and raised it noticeably. It was reinvigorated and had lost its sad soupy texture of recent weeks. The air temperature was up to 16C, with a favourable light breeze.

First stretch I tackled was this pool, where fish were rising:

Had my usual Chas Burns seven-and-a-half footer, 3 wt, ten foot-ish of leader and a foam-headed emerger tied with purple thread – in a brief nod to the snipe and purple – and with a somewhat fancy flashabou rib.

Three or four casts in and I hooked and lost one before bringing this small fish to hand:

Upstream to stretches like this:

Which produced a couple more of this ilk:

At this bend in the river there is a large, languid pool which almost always has small fish rising. They are tricky to pin down because of the lack of flow and hence difficulty in disguising the leader on the surface:

But managed to snaffle one:

Was picking up fairly regularly by now in water like this:

With ten fish in the bag I stopped for a bit to eat just downstream of this pool, in which I saw fish rising regularly just this side of the sunken tree trunk:

I was nervous about the cast as line would inevitable lie over the stones and could get snagged. Had a shot though and pulled one out, followed by the 12th and best fish of the day:

By now my fly was looking a bit sorry for itself, had lost its natty ribbing and was bent:

But it was still doing the business and I couldn’t be bothered to change it. Landed four more before calling it a day. Last fish, number 16, was this one:

In my book that counts as an excellent day’s wild trouting.