Anglers are catching salmon, brown trout and sea trout on Northumbrian Anglers Federation waters

It’s been a strange six weeks fishing-wise. Overall, the weather has been fairly dry and the temperatures have been good with the odd day hotter than normal. However there have been some strong winds which have kept many anglers at home.

Federation anglers on the Coquet have caught some lovely salmon, sea trout and brown trout.

Salmon up to 17lbs have given anglers some good battles. Just before the bank holiday, my friend Robert Bell had a sea trout of 9lbs around Lady’s Bridge on the Saturday. He had a silver salmon at Thropton on the Sunday, then another sea trout at Haltwhistle on the Monday. All caught on the fly.

I’ve been fishing for brown trout on different stretches of the Coquet and Wansbeck. It has been good fun with the trout willingly taking a wide variety of flies.

Dry flies, floating without any drag, attracted much attention. Wet flies, spider patterns, Pennell and Butchers all caught trout. Then nymphs weighted and unweighted, mainly in sizes 14 and 16, had trout tightening my floating line too.

Still waters have proved a challenge for many, but fish have been taken, mainly on dry flies and Suspender patterns.

The favourite Daddy Longlegs has accounted for lots of fish. It did not matter if the patterns were natural or orange bodied, both were successful. Nothing flies, F flies, Olives, Griffiths Gnats all worked.

September is the final month for river trout fishing, and the salmon fishing – in England only – has an extra month after that.