The River Doe and River Twiss
are two small rivers that join together just below the village of
Ingleton to form the River Greta, a tributary of the River Wenning, and
eventually the River Lune. Ingleton is a village in the far west of the
Yorkshire Dales, close to where North Yorkshire meets Cumbria, or Yorkshire Dales
meets Lake District.
Ingleton attracts many visitors, mainly due to its location in close
proximity to the Three Peaks, and caving available in the numerous potholes in the area. Ingleton is
also well know for its Waterfalls Walk, which follows the River Doe
upstream and the River Twiss downstream, past a series of waterfalls over
the limestone rock.
Fly fishing on the Rivers Doe and Twiss is for wild brown trout,
which are present in extraordinary numbers. In many places the brown
trout are very small, but in others they can attain a good size for a
river such as this. My personal best to date is a stunning brown trout
of about 1½lbs on a dry fly. The trout respond to a variety of methods,
but it is dry fly that is without doubt the most successful. It is rare
not to see fish rising to naturals throughout the season.
The River Doe rises at the head of Kingsdale (Kingsdale Head), where it is known
as Kingsdale Beck. Further down the valley it becomes the River Doe,
before flowing down the waterfalls to Ingleton, where it meets the River
Twiss and becomes the River Greta. The River Twiss starts it journey
near Chapel-le-Dale, flowing through Twistleton before it descends the
waterfalls to Ingleton. Incidentally, Ordnance Survey maps of the area
have the two rivers mixed up and incorrectly name them the wrong way
round, i.e. the Twiss as the Doe and Doe as Twiss.
Looking at both rivers you would expect them to be quite acidic and lacking in fly life,
but this is not the case. Both rivers have their source in limestone,
making the river more suitable for a variety of invertebrates. The
rivers have abundant fly-life with good hatches throughout the trout
season.
See more River Doe and River Twiss images on Flickr:
