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The Pennine Lakes - The Secret Wilderness
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Contact Us: Jeremy & Jennie Lucas Tel: 01768 352995 email: jjbrlucas@btopenworld.com Copyright © Wilderness Flyfishing, 2007. All rights reserved. |
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HOME |
The Pennine Lakes - The Secret Wilderness
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Contact Us: Jeremy & Jennie Lucas Tel: 01768 352995 email: jjbrlucas@btopenworld.com Copyright © Wilderness Flyfishing, 2007. All rights reserved. |
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One
of the highest, large lakes in England: Cow Green wild brown trout
fishery, set beneath Great Dun Fell among semi-alpine pasture and
designated a European Wilderness Area nature reserve. The lake is
close to the source of the River Tees on the borders of Cumbria, Durham and
Northumberland. Abounding with wild brown trout, the water is peat-stained and very exposed to the high Pennine winds.
From mid-May until the end of
September we choose relatively calm days to visit
this lake, walking along many miles of shoreline, exploring its points and
hidden bays.
Huge catches of 6" to 10" fish are likely here, often
into three figures through a June or July day, and significantly larger
brown trout will feature in most days' sport. With a shore perimeter
of about 10 miles, Cow Green is the grail of large English lake trout
fisheries, yet is relatively unknown. It's not
like the rest of England up here; it is an almost treeless wilderness of
rocky outcrops and peat and heather; the home of red grouse, wagtails and
harriers, and a botanical remnant of old-England, the beautiful, blue spring
gentian. It is a lonely place, as much Europe's fly-fishing frontier
as is south-eastern Poland or western Ireland. 
Solitary fishermen can
feel very ill-at-ease here;
better to walk out in pairs or threes and savour together the wildlife and
desolate scenery of this spiritually-moving place, and to experience the
dashing trout attacking and snatching your flies right up in the surf of the
gravel beaches. Lower down the remote Tees valley are Grassholme and
Selset, two more lakes in the Tees high-Pennine chain. Selset is populated with wild
trout, and like Cow Green, can yield undreamt of sport
to small black dry flies so close to the shore-side boulders. 
A day up here, in the Pennine wilderness, stays in the memory, in the soul,
forever. There are wild trout, in Europe; but
then there are wild Pennine trout. The two are not necessarily the
same. If you want to be guided by us at Wilderness Flyfishing,
you will be right up at the frontier of our sport.
When it's all done, you'll think back and not even question 'was
it worth it?'
Those images of desolate water-scape, and rock and heather, and dashing wild trout, will be etched in your mind's eye, indelibly.
You'll see flyfishing differently, as we did. Contact us - below - and get ready.