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.