Time for a rain dance

An earlier season photo from march behind Yorkhill

The river is running low and clear at the moment which is in turn making the fishing difficult as i find fish are very easily spooked in the kelvin when conditions are like this ,however while at the river yesterday i did notice quite allot of yellow May's on the water and that was bring about rising fish that were slashing at the surface drowning the fly then taking them below the surface film ,well this is what i think they were doing and i never had any imitations in my box but did manage to get a couple on a blue dun size 12 and 14 as well as managing a couple more from the lower part of the river behind Yorkhill hospital on a 2 fly set up using a pheasant tail nymph on the point and a partridge and orange on the dropper, the river is in desperate need of some rain and for one i will be doing a rain dance in the hope that the rain will come ,so come on all yea fly fishers get out yer bongos and your ankle bells and do a rain dance tonight as it looks nice and overcast at the moment so I'm hopeful.

My choice 12 flies for the kelvin

Blue winged olive Greenwells glory Elk hair caddis




Black pennel Black spider Bloody butcher Invicta


Phesant tail nymph Hairs ear nymph Greenwells nymph

Wooly bugger

Flies for the river kelvin ,a beginners choice.
If i had to make a choice of 12 I'm sure it would be 3 drys 4 wets 3 nymphs 2 streamers, first of all the drys my first choice would have to be the one i catch most fish on when using a dry and that's the dark olive in sizes 14 and 16 fished on a tapered leader of around 8ft which i make myself secondly would be Greenwells glory which covers quite allot of hatches in sizes 12/16 also fished on a tapered leader size 8ft with my last dry i would be silly not to have an Elk hair caddis pattern which on its day out fishes most others for me anyway , these are the choice of someone that has only fished the river with the fly for just over a season ,more experienced members may very well have a much varied choice of dry fly and even may frown at some of my choices, but onto the 4 wet flys i would like to have in my box would be as follows first choice would be ,and i will be sneaky here and say a spider pattern with my second choice being a Black Pennel and 3rd a Bloody Butcher and my last the Invicta which is a palmered pattern also capable of catching sea trout which frequent the river now to the nymphs well theirs 2 must haves and that's the pheasant tail and the hairs ear both ribbed and which are great point fly when using wets and also i would choose alongside these Greenwells nymph these all catch fish regularly and are enjoyable to fish, then their are the last 2 which i hope I'm right in classing as streamers and they would have to be woolly buggers for use when the river is quite high and has a little colour in it as i have had some of my best fish on these ,i would chose one black and one brown both weighted with lead or copper prior to tying ,using these patterns will bring you fish on the kelvin and in the near future when more confident with my tying ascetics i will do a step by step for all the patterns i use on the river so until then have a great time fishing and tight lines everyone.