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Looking out over the rivers and lakes one could be forgiven for thinking that all the fish have disappeared. As the hatches start to slow down there is less food on the surface and therefore there will be less rising fish. On the rain fed rivers where weed growth is at a minimum, fish will be either feeding near the surface or near the bottom. There may still be the occasional rise, especially during the warmest part of the day but this will become the exception and not the norm.
As much as we all enjoy dry fly fishing, unless we are willing to change our habits over the Autumn and Winter, fish will be few and far between. I was teaching grayling techniques on the river yesterday and we were learning spider methods. Whilst this can be a very effective on the certain days, yesterday it was cold and misty without a fly to be seen. There were no fish rising yet when we looked under the rocks and stones it was teaming with shrimp, nymphs and caddis larave.
I explained that the fish would be where the food is. If we wanted to catch we would need to get our fly down near the bottom. We switched to a czech tan bug and had 6 fine fish in less than an hour!