Saturday, 29 January 2011

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.




Tuesday, 25 January 2011

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?




Monday, 24 January 2011

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.