Trout In The Town

Have a look at these little fellas in Cheddar:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ5_-Xco1O0

The Cheddar Yeo is filtered by the limestone of the Mendip Hills, beneath which it forms the largest underground river system in Britain. After it flows down the famous gorge it arrives in the village and is home to some lovely trout, of various girths and some resident ducks. The trout are not shy and it is possible to tease them to the surface with some well presented Kingsmill, making for some rather energetic footage!

Heart Of Glass

We, that is my family and I, have just returned from our first holiday in Scotland since Harry's arrival almost a year ago. We stayed in a cabin in the middle of a forest, 5 minutes from the paradise that is Glen Affrick, traditionally beheld as one of the finest of its ilk in the country. Forget the Kunlun Mountains of Lost Horizon - this is Shangri-La..................well I think so anyway. Here there are not just mountains but also waterfalls, The Tomich Lochs and the River Glass to explore, not to mention some fine pubs and inns that offer the weary explorer refreshment and sanctuary from the elements. But I guess you have to visit the place to know of what I write and so to help you along and for your delectation here is a picture or two:-

Anyway - it is on the River Glass that I wish to elaborate, as this is after all a fishing based blog and I haven't got to do a lot of fishing this year or indeed blogging either, so her we go.

I booked the day on the BALMORE beat through FishPal several weeks in advance. Now I am not one for gratuitous advertising, but when others may benefit from my own experiences with something then I think that something worth sharing. All I did was go onto the FishPal website and click a button and hey presto - I had a day on the Glass. Simplicity itself. No sooner had I clicked said button than an e-mail of confirmation was received and also one from the beat owner giving me directions and a beat map. Brilliant.

So, um, there we go then - FOR ALL YOUR SALMON FISHING, GO TO http://www.fishpal.com/ You can pay me later Fishpal people!!

So the morning of the 5th September arrived and........................ahh "Darling we have a puncture....."

You can imagine my reaction. Actually because we were on holiday it wasn't that dramatic, until that is the wheel brace that came with the car broke in two. I was a a tad more animated then. But Victoria, ever calm, called the RAC chap and he put on the thing that is passed off as a spare wheel, I was dropped at the river and Vicky went into Beauly for the day. Two tyres needed replacing in the end - £337.00 !!

The first thing that struck me about the Glass is its size. It is a tributary of the Beauly and a Highland river, so I was expecting a Borgie or Avon sized affair. But no; this is a proper river and even a square cast would have to be 35yds in places to fish any lies on the other side. Having said that, there are plenty of lies within easy casting distance - after all the great misnomer about salmon fishing is that the fish ALL lie on the other side. The anglers opposite catch fish and as this is a commonly held misconception it stands to reason that there must be fish lying on your side of the river! Follow? No - oh well never mind. Suffice to say, big as the river looked, I wasn't too over awed. I am a goodish caster and determined, even before arriving, that I was going to fish the river rather than just cast cast cast.

The second thing that struck me was that ALL the water on the 1.25 mile of the Balmore stretch was fly water and that the water was at a very fishable height. The latter is due largely to the fact that the Glass is part of the Scottish Hydro Electric scheme and as such the levels are controlled by way of damns from power stations along its course. This ensures that even in the driest of conditions there is water by way of compensation flow. It also means that the level can change quite quickly, both up and down and this in itself can be a little strange. There are several tributaries above the river's confluence with the Farrar and its subsequent renaming to the River Beauly and these ensure that after rain perfectly natural spates can occur to.

I am, I am afraid, a believer in the fish's ability to tell the difference between a compensation flow and a spate. They tend to run on the latter. Unfortunately there had not been one of these for some time and only one fish was seen all day. The syndicate members who fish the other bank and most of the rest of the river are struggling and it would appear that at time of my visit the fish simply had not arrived. Never mind.

When all is said and done, and herein lies my point, the Glass is a big but rather lovely river. The facilities at Balmore are great and Michael the owner keeps it all very well. The new hut is very comfortable and access very easy. The fly fishes beautifully down the entire beat and the wading is easy.

Here's another couple of pics.............................GIVE IT A GO

APOLOGIES EVERYONE

I am afraid that a lot of my pictures have disappeared. This is a problem with Google or Blogspot and the Google +1 thing. All the posts I +1ed have had their pics wiped. I will get them back up asap.

Bored? Try Recycling.

I have been quite ill recently. A month ago I was diagnosed with severe pneumonia as a result of a blood clot on the lung. I have pleurisy, which is nice and part of my lung has collapsed. The antibiotics are working, but only at half the speed they should be and I can’t walk across the room without puffing like Stevenson’s Rocket. It ain’t a lot of fun and at times I am quite bored.

To help pass the time I have watched a couple of Davie McPhail’s fly tying videos. He is truly a master of his art.

Watch them on You Tube at:-

http://www.youtube.com/user/DavieMcPhail

Anyway. I got to thinking, as one is apt to do when presented with hours to fill, and decided that I would tie a few flies myself. Nothing unusual here as I knock the odd combination of fur and feather together every now and then and call the resulting ensemble something pretty, then  pronounce it a fly worthy of fishing.

This time though I decided that I am fed up with having so many semi-destroyed flies lying around; ill-tied efforts of some commercial enterprise that have fallen to bits whilst being cast and never even so much as been sniffed at by a fish. I looked out a few and stripped them bare. It is the resulting bare hooks that I will recycle and use to tie up variations of the flies they once were. The aforementioned stripping is a little time consuming, but then in my case that is essentially the idea, but once achieved a perfectly serviceable hook is left. I liken it to collecting spent brass cases and reloading one’s own centre fire ammunition.

Here is an example of my efforts – from start to finish.

This is the sorry state of a shop bought stoat’s tail that fell to bits without even seeing the water!

Here is the stripped hook. A size 8 double. I am starting with double salmon and sea trout flies.

Here is the final reincarnation. Not really a Stoat’s Tail in the traditional sense, but then I have hundreds of them so this one has an orange beard and tail and a pearly body. I haven’t made the throat hackle as full as a proper stoat’s tail either. Another coat of varnish and it’ll be done. The head’s a bit big but it’ll fish ok. I pass the thread under the wing a couple of times to make sure it doesn’t stick to the body in faster water.

So there you have it. Lay bare those redundant flies and recycle my friends recycle.

Damn…………………now I’m bored again………………..and still ill. Oh well.

There’s Gold In Them There Hills

I learnt a phrase the other day. It’s not very useful but I like it. It’s in a language I have never spoken but would like to learn.

It’s: Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn llyswennod

I have to say, and I don’t mean to appear immodest for a second, I work bloomin’ hard at my job. Yep……..I do…………most of the time. My “territory”, as they call it, spreads from Land’s End to Southampton, up to Milton Keynes, then across diagonally and up to Chester. If you were to draw a line on your road atlas from Chester to Land’s End you would find that your pen leaves its inky mark at a 45 degree through the ancient and beautiful land of Wales where I learnt my new phrase.

I am lucky enough to live only 35 minutes along the road from the great bridge that spans the Severn to join our two great nations…………………actually it costs £5.70, which is probably testimony to the fact that some consider it worth paying to get to greener grass on the other side - and the fact that to return to England is free is so that travellers are in no way discouraged nor hindered in their trip when, those that do not fish, realise that said grass is not that much greener after all……………………….( I like dots )and to plan a trip there means I can look forward to the most breath taking mountains outside of Scotland, bright streams and friendly - FRIENDLY I say – people. The problem is I only go there for work and never have time to fish.  I probably know more about the fishing throughout Wales than any other person who never fishes there!! It is shameful.

Take the other day. My route took me, by design, from Oswestry to Machynlleth where I stayed the night and the next day from Mach to Lampeter,  then home across aforementioned bridge. During this sojourn I must have crossed a hundred streams and a dozen rivers, all containing, at the very least, hard fighting wild brown trout and some, salmon and sea-trout. Each one warrants, or has warranted in the past, a closer look – usually from a bridge and every single inspection yealds a feeling of guilt that I never make time to fish. You can imagine how long it sometimes takes me to get to my destination!

My night away was spent in a hotel that I last visited 20 years ago. I purposely haven’t been there on a working trip because I thought I would find it too depressing as it has Tal-y-Llyn, a 222 acre lake full of trout, 25yds from the front door.  As it happens all it did was bring back some lovely memories.

Tal-y-Llyn

From The Tynycornel Hotel I went to Lampeter and found the River Teifi, one of Britain’s most famous sea-trout rivers, to be bubbling along quite merrily. The levels seem to be holding up quite well and there are enough heavy showers up in the mountains to keep Llyn Teifi topped up and help the river below.  Every twist and turn on the short stretch that I walked looked like it would yield a silver beauty and then, as always, I had to think about work.

The River Teifi at Lampeter

Because of the state of our rivers through lack of rainfall, I have done next to no fishing, and yet, after the frustration fades, it is apparent that I AM doing a bit of thinking on the subjects of fishing, family and career - well I call it thinking anyway - some would argue that I should do more of that about other stuff too!

So, this is what I think. I think that I must utilise the gift of Wales-On-The-Doorstep and not just sit on the Somerset Levels dreaming of Scotland. I think that I should pack my 9ft #5 weight whenever I go there. I think that I should take Vicky and Harry across the great divide on a regular, nothing-to-do-with-work basis, so that they too can enjoy the likes of Cadir Idris, Snowdon, Brenig, Llangollen and the wealth of wonderful places, mountains, rivers and castles that Wales has to offer.

I think I am Wales’s new best friend.

Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn llyswennod

............................................................................My hovercraft is full of eels.

The Deveron Fishing Festival 2011

A few months ago, during a session of “surfing” the websites that I look at occasionally, I came across an advert for a fishing festival that would be held over the course of a week on the River Deveron. The organisers - The Deveron, Bogie and Isla Charitable Trust – had managed to persuade 20 riparian owners to give over their fishing to a week of celebrating all that is The Deveron, 12 of the 20 beats there given being hosted by a different member of the trade.  Anglers were invited to bung their names into a hat and those that were picked out first would be hosted on a different trade beat Mon, Tues and Wed and those that were picked out in a second ballot could fish a different un-hosted beat each day over the Mon, Tues and Wed. The Thursday, Friday and Saturday would be reserved for the trade to invite their own guests fishing.

So I chucked my hat into the ring and, forsooth, it was picked up! There was the opportunity to pick one’s favourite manufacturers out of those attending and so I picked Snowbee for the Monday who were on Netherdale, Hardy on the Tuesday at Avochie and Loomis on the Wednesday who were on the Forglen beat. All was then confirmed and so, on Sunday 15th May I grabbed my tackle and Musto Marc and drove 10 hours to Turriff in Aberdeenshire.

Typically, as is seemingly always the case with me, my destination had had no significant rain for weeks – even though the other east coast rivers were getting nice regular top-ups – although a few heavy showers on the Saturday and Sunday nights did mean Monday dawned with the river up 4 inches.

Anyway I am not going to give a blow by blow account as that would be terribly tedious. We didn’t catch anything over the three days and the river was back down to zero on the gauge Tuesday morning, so there would be little point. Forglen is by far the most beautiful beat on which I have ever fished and the Deveron is fast becoming my favourite river.

There are some pics on a seperate page so have a look.

The important thing about this trip was not really the fishing; it was the concept that took us their.  The Festival gave over 100 anglers the chance to see three very different beats on a river many (most actually) of them had never fished in an area that they had never been to. Even for Marc and I - who, being potless, were initially attracted by the fact it was free, and have fished the Deveron several times before - it was proof that you never really get to know a river until you have seen its many faces and the three beats we fished were completely different to Marnoch where we normally go. 

The Deveron Fishing Festival is a brilliant concept. It develops angling tourism in the area, during an often under utilised month, and advertises and promotes interest in the river over a huge area. There were applications from anglers in Finland, Norway, America and Belgium.

River trusts all over the UK could learn a thing or two by looking at the DBICT and the work they do and by taking this festival idea on board and adapting it for their own rivers.  I will certainly be mentioning it to anyone I know and hopefully, one day, we might do something similar here in the south west.

I hope so.

A Grand Day Afloat

 

Friend Marc – he works for Musto you know, which musn’t be held against him – and I launched our boat on Kennick Reservoir in beautiful sunshine and a nice breeze.

For those that don’t know, Kennick is a lake of about 50 acres on the southern edge of Dartmoor. It is stocked with excellent rainbow trout and has a good head of brown trout too. It is a beautiful place and offers ample compensation for the continuing lack of water in our salmon rivers.

Normally we would look through our fly boxes, discuss the various patterns and their relevance for the time of year, pick out the ones that take our fancy from an imitative point of view and then discard the lot in favour of a black tadpole or an olive bugger/damsel type thing and think no more about them! Last time we even coupled them with sinking lines for the complete package.

Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with fishing a lake for rainbows in this fashion. It is easy and effective and very little can go wrong. But this time, in my continuing efforts to make the most of my fishing I decided to actually read some catch return cards and formulate a plan based on something more considered than the devil I know so well. Said catch returns, submitted by other people who have fished the lake over the past days and weeks, pointed to flies that actually resemble something – in most cases buzzers, which are imitations of emerging midges – and these I have in spades. They are widely employed, but being an active sort of fisherman I find they need to be fished in too sedentary a manner for my liking and thus I have rarely used one and NEVER caught anything on one or a team of them.

But this day use them I did, on a floating line to boot, for the entire morning and guess what………….I caught fish. Ok, Musto Marc on the other hand didn’t change his tactics and caught twice as many - um yeah - but I felt more virtuous.

So there we are. Never be afraid to experiment and there is nothing wrong with trying something new.

Low Water………………. Again

 

Previously I have written about how determined I am this year to make the most of every fishing opportunity. The weather has been really beautiful so far this April, with temperatures rising to 20 degrees +.  Unfortunately, when I went to the Taw yesterday evening (Friday 8th April) with the idea of trying for a salmon, it was only to find the river desperately low.

Chum Glyn has put a webcam opposite as part of the excellent Farson Digital network, but as we had a lot of rain last weekend I didn’t think of checking it. The fact that I had forgotten of course was that we have had the driest March for ages and so everything soaked the water up like a sponge. Apparently the water hardly rose at all, although looking retrospectively on the webcam’s log, it had been fishable up until this warm spell.

Now I normally fish the Rising Sun Water for salmon and stay in the pub of the same name, and the Fox and Hounds water for trout and yes – stay in the pub of the same name.  Thursday I had to stay at the Fox because there are new tenants at the Riser, who are, quite wisely I might add, refurbishing the rooms. (The Rising Sun has always been one of my favourite places to stay. It will be even better now.) So why then you might ask, did I not just go trout fishing. Well I shall tell you. Because I had neglected to take my trout gear with me.

I refer the reader to my previous article – PPPPPP.

                               

I MUST Check My Flies!

The amount of times I have fished through a pool and thought that I must be doing something wrong or that my timing has gone off are many. I carry on down - still not first rate - strange as the wind, although upstream, is only very light and I can normally cover that lie on the far side quite happily - oh well.

Suddenly I have a thought and look at my fly..............ah. That'll be the problem then. One of the hooks has caught itself up around the leader. I then wonder how long it has been that way. Potentially I haven't fished the pool at all!

Maybe it is just me, but I get so engrossed in casting my way out of trouble or into form or trying to fish every cast as though it's my last, that I forget the obvious.

Here is a quick sequence to show the effects of a hooked up fly. In this case it is a big tube that I wouldn't normally fish in these conditions as the water is a bit low, but it does show how the entire cast is affected from the initial lift, through the touchdown and lift off of the anchor and finally the turnover of the fly itself.

Although this is a set-up to make the effects obvious, even with small flies all these difficulties are experienced if they are hooked up, just to a lesser extent. The fact is that with, say, a size 12 double or treble, it is even easier to waste a lot of time casting when all the while not fishing.

When in doubt, I MUST stop fishing and check my flies.

The silly thing is that at night I check my flies every few casts and rarely have a problem.

Proper Preparation Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance

 
I have just been to Bellbrook trout fishery. I do not quite know why. I paid £35 to catch three specimen fish and came away having caught nothing more exciting than a mutant trout and slight chill!

I have to say that I was ill prepared. I had an old line that should have been changed ten years ago. It purports, or rather purported, to be an intermediate. This means that it sinks very slowly, much slower than a slow sinking line, but it definitely sinks, so is mid-way between a floater and a sinker - thus "intermediate". Ideally a line of this sort should gradually drop beneath the surface on a nice level plain with no one part sinking any faster than another. My version rather resembled the sinking of a piece of rotten string, parts of it didn't sink at all. No amount of jollop or fullers earth could persuade it to behave like it should and so, I am afraid, I removed it from the spool at the end of the day and hurled it with considerable force - not to mention malice - into the nearest bin!

I was fishing with my best friend Marc. Musto Marc we call him because he works for this popular clothing brand. (IT SHOULD BE MENTIONED HERE THAT I WORK FOR LE CHAMEAU - A FAR SUPERIOR BRAND OF COUNTRY CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR, THAT HAS SHAPED THE WAY WE DRESS WHILST SHOOTING. Well................that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) He caught his three specimen fish very easily. Actually I say "specimen" but by this I mean they came from one of the Specimen Lakes. They were neither extraordinarily large nor perfect of fin; but he he caught them. We were fishing the same flies on the same lakes and at the same time. The only difference was that his nice blue Cortland Intermediate did exactly what it says on the tin.

I could have gone salmon fishing for £40 and expected to catch nothing. If I had connected - OH the joy. This small stillwater debacle was the exact opposite - and it was all my fault.

I left the fishery feeling most dejected.

P.P.P.P.P.P...........................Remember this for a more stress free life.

Spring

I have just received my March copy of Trout & Salmon Magazine which is full of opening day accounts for the Scottish salmon rivers and pictures of spring fish all over the place.  It fairly wobbled my collies with excitement!

I am in the process of looking into a trip which will take in at least two good spring rivers, The Eden and The Tweed, if not three - as I would love to fish the Dee as well. I have never fished two of them and the Tweed has bore witness to my casting only a couple of times.

Anyone want to come?

West Country Reservoirs

We are lucky to have some of the country’s finest reservoir trout fishing right here in the West Country. We have brown trout only, rainbow only and mixed fisheries ranging in size from fifty to several hundred acres in size. Later in the year the sport can be almost entirely top-of-the-water based, but every season the problem arises of what to do in the early weeks. It is the easiest of things to reach for the sinking line and a tadpole type lure, which, when jerked back at various depths, can guarantee any angler a bulging bass bag.

This year, by way of a variation on my new philosophy (see Spinning and Stuff), I am going to try something different. The sinking line, if necessary, will remain, but I am going to try a slightly more traditional approach.
Once upon a time someone somewhere developed a fly which was so successful on stillwaters that it was banned on some lakes for being unsporting. This was when all the trout were wild and brown of hue. It has since fallen out of favour with the southern trout fisher, who now favours more modern patterns, and has been adopted by the sea-trout angler instead. It encompasses everything that a lure should and is one of a handful of similar flies, developed long ago yet never seen in the modern rainbow trout angler's fly box. This particular fly is the Alexandra, named after the princess who later became the Queen.  It is still used in Scotland and by a few people south of the border, primarily for brown trout. But why shouldn't it work for rainbows too?

The same can be said of the Butcher in its normal, Bloody and Kingfisher guises. Also some of the more modern rainbow flies of the 70s and 80s have come and gone like the Sweeney Todd and the whiskey fly.

On those rare days when the sun might deign to warm the top few inches of water, I will forsake the sinking line all together and fish a floater with black beetley type patterns in very small sizes IN the surface film. A lot of the reservoirs down here have a fall of terrestrials on a day that is simply warmer than the day before. These will not be the foam variety of today but traditional things like black and peacock spiders fished as part of a team.

I am, therefore simply not going to tie on a tadpole or a humongous when I first take to a boat on Roadford, Wimbleball or Kennick. I don't own a blob and buzzers and diawl bachs can be replaced with spiders of various types and small bibios...........................well maybe. I am really looking forward to seeing if the patterns I used 20 years ago still work and let's face it; the fish aren't influenced by fashion are they?

Spinning and Stuff

There are many ways of categorising people and many categories in which to place them.

Two of these are "Process Preoccupied" (PP) and "Results Driven" (RD). The latter are the kind of folk who ask for an end result and are happy to achieve or receive it, regardless of the way it was attained. 

The former are the people for whom the WAY the result is achieved is as important if not more so than the actual positive outcome being realised.  

If I ask for something and I get it, I am happy. That's it. I wouldn't of course find any sort of illegality or deception in getting my specific desire acceptable and nor would I ever suggest that anyone else should or would, but I am nonetheless a member of the RD camp.  I find the other lot rather tedious and unnecessary.

How many times do we see adverts for jobs that say "Target lead and results driven people required for a leading.....etc...."? Quite a few I should say. I have applied for one or two in the past and got them. NOTHING is more frustrating than delivering the goods, only to have one's method criticised simply for either acting on initiative or choosing to take an individual line and then never being thanked for achieving more than was asked for.

Imagine my horror then when I suddenly realised that in fishing I had subconsciously fallen into Team PP. Let me explain.

I go fishing to relax and enjoy myself. If I catch a fish, all well and good, but my aim is essentially to relax, have fun and maybe catch something.  I have to reiterate this to myself constantly. 

There was a time when I would fish any method to achieve these end results. Any method because there is no fun in fishing a fly in a raging spate or on a river with no current to work it. I used to get huge enjoyment from other people catching fish and having a good time themselves. 

Then I discovered spey casting and I became so preoccupied with HOW I and others fished and the process that leads to the perfect cast that I forgot how to really enjoy being out there. It meant that waters I have fished in the past have been neglected and methods I practised as a young'en have been spurned.

It also meant that I caught less and when I did land a cracker, the fish would be released and then the whole process of the cast and subsequent playing of said fish would be analysed almost to death. Indeed so thoroughly would the technicalities be dissected that the actual fish and its beauty, the take and its subsequent release were often forgotten within minutes. CRIMINAL really.

This season I am going to have fun and fish more and possibly cast less. I am going to dig out my spinning gear and fish the rivers I used to frequent. I'm going to try for trout and salmon even when the water conditions aren't great for the fly.

In the past, one of the most enjoyable ways I've tried of tempting a fish is with spinning gear and a Devon minnow. The Devon is adaptable and, with tweaking, can be used in all conditions and on all waters (where allowed). 

Devons come in all shapes and sizes. They can be made of metal or of balsa and fished deep and slowly or high and fast. My favourite type are the floating kind fished ahead of a Wye or Avon type weight and possibly an anti kink vane. The weight's size and position can be set to dictate where in the water the lure fishes and at what speed, and in high and fast water the whole set-up can be used to fish a pool or run in the same way as with a fly. A Hilman weight can be used in the reel side eye of a BB swivel by way of an alternative, and this negates the need to add an anti kink vane. They also break away should a snag be encountered.

The thing to remember when fishing the floating Devon is to always fish with a very high rod tip. This way one can feel the bottom and guide the weight over any snags. It also gives a great indication of, and a buffer when, a fish takes.

The traditional yellow-belly used to catch hundreds of fish every year, but now one rarely hears of them being used. This, I think, is because people are so concerned with fishing the fly and the process by which it hopefully goes where they want it to.  Also treble hooks are out of favour, but doubles or singles can be used if one makes one's own mounts, which adds to the fun.

If, at the end of the season, I feel that I have had more fun than in the last few years, I shall consider that mission accomplished and not dwell too long after the event on how I achieved it. I will, in effect, be properly in camp RD.

REASONS

Vicky should be making bows and stuff for the wedding invitations and working on their wording but is playing Mariokart Wii! I should be putting together the new cot bed and clearing up Bramble's (black lab if you remember) area of the garden but am writing this instead. 

Why is it that when we are supposed to be doing a specific task, we so often have an idea about something else there is to do, the actioning of which becomes a "reason" why we haven't had time to do the original job? It's not as if making bows from ribbons or constructing a flat-pack cot are arduous tasks, and both are things that might in turn be used as convenient reasons not to do far more unpleasant things that might crop up.

The mess in the garden is a completely different matter of course and my reluctance to undertake it's clearing must surely be understandable!?

This strange situation can and frequently does occur even when one is doing something as enjoyable as fishing. I cannot count the amount of times that I have sat with others, tarrying over an extra sausage at breakfast or another slurp of sloe-gin in the hut at lunchtime, whilst prolonging a conversation or just finishing a chapter of my book, when I know that, if justice is to be done to the pool and enough time is to be available to fish the others on the beat, I should be out there doing it, not gassing and munching and slurping and finishing.

It's weird............... Theories anyone?  Oh I was forgetting that nobody reads this. Oh well.

Anyway, I have tied a couple more flies. I would like to have a day or two this spring - it being the most wonderful of seasons - on a "big" river and so, in anticipation, I have knocked up some big patterns to fish deeply and at a very slow speed in the cold water.  I usually favour the size of the fly being dictated by the length of the dressing and so by using a very long wing on a small hook one is able to present a big fly in warm water near the surface or, by changing leader and or line, the same fly at a variety of depths. I find too that the waddington shank type of assembly fishes a lot better off of a fast sinking line as it rarely sinks beneath the level that said line is fishing at. Indeed if you want to fish water above the level that the line is fishing you can by changing to a lighter fly (or even nylon tube) and lengthening the leader. Copper tubes have their place, especially in sizes up to 1.5 - 2", and when partnered with a floating or intermediate line. They tend to be quite hard to cast without disturbance though and they tend to unbalance a cast and so add to difficulties caused by an adverse wind. This is all only what I find. Others obviously, and probably quite rightly, think differently. 

These are good old(ish) fashioned clonkers, to be fished on the end of a fast sinking line and the shortest of leaders. The snag here of course, is that I no longer have a fast or even medium sinking line - but that is easily remedied, I'll go and buy one.........unless, of course, a "reason" comes along why I don't.

Look at the size of that! Nice.

Patience and Fly Fishing

Patience, as anyone that knows me will tell you, is not one of my most obvious virtues. I hate queuing, and red lights at junctions reduce me to a state of apoplectic hysteria.

I was at one of my accounts today, and the person I was dealing with, who was one of five on the shop floor, kept answering the phone instead of attending to the business in hand. There was coffee and there were biscuits, but they did little to stay my impatience.

Because of this particular character trait, people are often prompted to ask me why I fish, or how can I enjoy it so much as it obviously takes patience, or they even sometimes exclaim sheer disbelief that I actually fish at all!  To them I simply say this (and I will put it in capital letters for effect): FLY FISHING DOES NOT TAKE PATIENCE - NONE - NOT A JOT. It takes perseverance and dedication. It takes skill and a lot of luck. It does not however take patience. 

The beauty of fishing with the fly is that you are always on the move and the time between casts is usually short. This is especially true of running water, but even on the small stillwater, where it is possible, given buzzer feeding fish and a lack of an itinerant nature, for the keenest of anglers to take on a state that resembles a catatonic heron, patience is seldom needed as the one constant of fly fishing - and of any field sport for that matter - is eternal expectation, and the power that that expectation casts over one can be all enveloping. The side effect of this, inevitably, is that time flies by.

No patience needed.....................see?

MY FIRST POST

I am sitting here wondering what on earth to write.  It is my first attempt at blogging and since there seems to be no way that anyone might discover these musings by accident, I am confident that it doesn't really matter what I say as no one will read it!

Anyway - in case somebody does happen upon it - here is my first post.

This year, as it stands at the moment, is and was always going to be an important one. Even if I let events roll along on their current course, without further interference or influence, our son is going to say his first words and hopefully take his first steps. Moments to treasure for any parent as I am sure you will agree.

However Vicky and I are not going to just sit around and wait for time to slip by whilst these things take place. We are planning stuff to make 2011 even better.

Vicky is going to go back to work. I am going to do some writing AND send the results to an editor as finished articles.

Most importantly, we are getting married in June. Plans for this event are well under way and under VK's tight control. My main area of autonomy is in the planning of the honeymoon. We are going to go to Scotland. We shall mix a bit of sightseeing with a bit of fishing and some quality time as a family.

At the moment I am looking at Skye.

I hope that during this sojourn north of the border Harry will experience another first too............seeing his first salmon caught! Although, going on my recent records, I don't hold out much hope. Anyway I have designed a new fly with which to expedite this occurrence and I am calling it the Harrisonio......................for reasons unknown!

HERE IT IS.

Let me know what you think..........................................or don't if you can't be bothered.