Pete's Weighty ( Fly Fishing ) Words

I had a really good day on the river guiding Jo today, the conditions were spot on and the fish were poppin! We started off hanging a nymph under our dry but seeing risers had me cutting it off pretty quickly. The stretch of the Culm we were on is a long one with lush weed growth and plenty of insect life. We had a wealth of hatches today with various caddis, light and dark olives, hawthorns and we even spotted a lone mayfly!

 We covered rising fish and Jo did a great job hitting just about every fish that took a liking to our offering. The interesting thing was that we had great success with sighted fish but casting blind into likely looking holes didn’t work as well as we might have hoped. It seemed the fish in the pools were either on or off and no inbetween. Thankfully there were plenty who were “on”!

I am on another river again with Gavin tomorrow and hope it will be as good!

Our good friend from AAPGAI, Lee, has just come in from a very successful trip on Coniston chasing pike…well done mate!

I have just spent a really enjoyable couple of days with Paul and Sean who came down to see us from the Midlands. They were keen to fish the rivers but the weather was against us on the first day so we headed in search of pike. Below is a shot of Pauls first pike on a fly…somehow I don’t think it will be the last!

The guys did a great job and also mastered the near bank approach where savage takes can take place right by you feet. They are really exciting and can take you by surprise…right guys?!

We then popped down to our lake for a spot of casting and some lake fishing for a couple of hours catching rainbows on dries and then for fun we put on some nasty stuff I’d tied just to see if it would work!

We were hoping to head to the Tamar with some trout and possibly some salmon. The beat is beautiful and we are able to drive along it so the plan was to strap salmon gear along with trout gear onto the truck and then fish the pools accordingly. An early call was not encouraging and high and like chocolate was Williams  reply to my question about fishing possibilities. We decided to head a little higher and fish a carrier of the Tamar on the basis it might be a little clearer. We were happy campers when we peered over the bridge and quickly popped on our waders and got going. The Lyd was still a little high and the fish were not making life easy for the guys but they fished out of their skins and did fantastically well given the conditions. We even found some rising fish just after lunch and it was good to see the fish take our offerings.

Sean into a fish!

Mark has made the long drive up to Scotland to the Tweed Fair where he along with Karl and Illtyd are supporting one of our dealers and catching up and swapping stories with some of the guys from AAPGAI. I spoke to Mark this morning and he was a little tired having been out casting in the darkness at 2am with the guys!!

With Mark away and Bob still sunning himself and me out and further guiding also booked for last Thurs and Fri a good friend of SFFS helped us out and did two days on the Bray and Taw with Marc and his brother over from NZ. Sounds like they had a blast…good work fella!

I’ve been at our YakShack at Roadford today and there were plenty of Hawthorn around. Apparently there was a 3lber caught there on Saturday. I have a day off tomorrow so if the rivers are not on I think I might give it a go!

Paul had done something a little different with an elk hair caddis we used on the Culm last week and has written a little bit about it below. Hope you enjoy!

Had another great day out with Pete on Wednesday, helping me come to grips with our stretch of the Culm which has consistently defeated me both in terms of wadeability and catching fish. The demons have now been exorcised!

Saturday was great weather and I was lucky enough to be on the water in Wiltshire doing a demo and some tuition for members of a club I belong to. We covered lots and I hope that it went down well. The guys were all good anglers and just wanted a few tricks to make the day on the water a little easier. We covered presentation casts to ensure a good long drag free drift and also how to deal with the wind in different situations along with a few other casts.

Ray came and gave me a hand and it was really cool working with him, he did an awesome job!

So it gets to 5pm and its a long drive home, what do you do? Yup, go fishing! It is much nicer having the A303 to yourself so a later leaving time is much better. Ray has found a superb Chinese take away so we sat on the tail gate of my truck and munched a most excellent MSG free noodles and chicken and then hit the river.

We thought it would be nice to fish dries and we’d seen fish gulping LDO’s throughout the day and with the wind dropping we thought we were in with a chance. We did OK too and had some fish. When Ray and I fish together it is a case (if the fishing is good) of having one and the other person has a go. There was a short spell where Ray was re tying on a fly and I had moved upstream just enough that he could make a few casts and pick up a couple of fish I had left for him!!

The highlight was a fish that we couldn’t really work out. We had been fishing through a caddis hatch but this boy was on something different and despite throwing a few flies at him he didn’t want to take. I had foolishly left my phone on and Mark had called to see how we had got on. I was telling him about this fish and hadn’t noticed Ray sneak on a size 22 unweighted pheasant tail nymph. It did the job but as I said to Mark it must have been a hollow victory as he had broken our dry only rule for the night. Mark thought it was a bit like foul hooking a fish!!. I laughed but big respect to Ray for being flexible and sussing things out.

Apparently my pics of Natasha and Wendy didn’t show up so lets try again…

Natasha and Wendy spent a day with Mark and below are  a few words from them…

We just wanted to write to thank Mark for a fabulous introdution to fly fishing -

we had a lovely day on the lake and hopefully this will be a great start

to many years of enjoyment by the water.

 Alan Stevens into a fish!

Its been a busy week so far both in the office and out on the water. Mark was out with Alan Stevens on Tues and is out again today with Natasha and her friend. I have been down to see how they are doing this morning and looks as ever as if the ladies are taking to fly casting like ducks to water. As mentioned before Bob is away sunning himself but I was out guiding Paul yesterday. We were on a stretch of water that Paul has fished before but wanted a little bit of help with. I was very happy to oblige and he did himself proud! It was a really long beat and we covered some water and as ever I find it hard to leave rising fish so lunch ended up at 2.45 rather than the 1pm we had planned. It was worth it though!

The fish, as a whole, are still looking to hold in the middle and tails of pools although we did find a few smaller ones in the heads but not many. The fly of choice was a balloon caddis which by the end of the day was a little the worse for wear and we decided to retire it to the hall of fame for all of its sterling work. Funnily enough I have had this fly in my box for quite a while now but haven’t needed to use it until yesterday. The reason being that we had an awesome hatch of grannom throughout the day. Grannom are a member of the sedge family and the first hatch of sedges that we see in the year. Paul had been on the same stretch of river the day before and hadn’t seen a fish rise although the hatch was starting and despite hooking a fish on a dry first cast it took a couple of hours before the fish got truely locked on to them. When they did though we witnessed some pretty savage takes and some great fishing. It is pretty neat hitting everything as it comes together. Hopefully Paul left with a few more tricks in his bag and even mastered the skated downstream sedge…right Paul?!

Part of a good fishing trip is having the right music to go with the travelling part. If it is a long trip I’ll have a good selection of discs carefully selected and put together by my daughter Charlie. At 16 she is fully aware of what is hot and what isn’t and puts together an appropriate compilation. I don’t remember at her age having such eclectic tastes and I am sure your finger leaves the musical pulse when you get to 30 and it is only a short time before “Dad dancing” starts.

She manages to make the Beach Boys sit comfortably with The Chili Peppers via Soft Cell. I must admit there was a time last year when Mark and I were off bassing and drove through the middle of Barnstaple with “tainted love” blaring out of the CD player and open windows…strange lot us fly fishers!

On the outwood part of the trip I prefer faster music and it might be The Foo Fighters (a big SFFS team fave) or The Who but on the way back when there is plenty of conversation about the day something a little more mellow is required. A fave this year that has gone down well with clients is Sea Sick Steve. He churns out some high quality blues. I first saw him on Jools Holland’s Later program on BBC2. He stole the show and if you are unsure about whether to commit to an album of blues he appears on the Later Live album so that you can get a flavour.

Two albums that are a permanent feature are from the Live Lounge series. The cool thing about these are that you have well known acts covering other peoples songs. You have artists like Lemar covering The Darkness (it works!) or Keane covering U2. It is great to see other bands paying the ultimate compliment by copying another artists work. I know I for one would be take it as a compliment that my work were taken seriously and being acknowledged.

Bob has left for sunnier shores for a couple of weeks so I am at the helm for a bit whilst juggling tuition/guiding in between. It is fun being so busy but where does the day go to?

I left the office and popped down to the lake to let someone who had popped in cast a couple of rods and was surprised to see Mark teaching in a T shirt. I know they breed em tough in the midlands but perhaps the weather is on the turn. He took a camera and I hope he’ll have a shot or two.

I am on the river tomorrow with Paul and am really looking forward to it!

Bob is away from today for a couple of weeks and not withstanding the thought of him sunning himself in his Speedos Mark and I had Sunday off as he did the teaching honours so we could do some fishing.

 We are building a few new river venues up as we think it is nice to offer different options rather than the same old same old, its not so much fun when you know the names of the fish! The little gem we have found flows into the Tamar but clears really quickly as it is high and straight off of the Moors and so is handy if we do have a wet one. It is a really pretty little stretch and one for the small stream fan and is just 10mins away from SFFS mission control. I might give it a shot Weds if the weather stays the same as I am out guiding.

Whilst on that it reminds me of a joke about a fishing guide who dies and wakes up on a riverbank with his client waiting to go fishing. He has a perfect day picking the right fly, spotting the fish and the client fishes perfectly and doesn’t miss a fish. The day ends with a very happy guide. Next morning the guide wakes up at the same beat, same client, same conditions. The client starts fishing and everything is exactly the same and at the end of the day everything has happened as the day before, even the conversation. The same happens for the next few days. Frustrated and at the end of the 12th day of exactly the same the guide turns to the client and says “hey, I thought this was supposed to be heaven” the client flashes him an evil smile and said “who said anything about heaven? welcome to eternity!”

When a little bit of sun creeps through and things warm up the Large Dark Olives are looking to hatch and we have also seen the odd hawthorn. If the winds are right look for places like Colliford and Roadford for spectacular brown trout fishing with hawthorn flies. There is nothing like seeing a fit 2lb wild brown hit your offering and head off for deep water!

I managed to get back from a two day trip to California in one piece and despite a nasty case of jet lag I have to say it was really worth it. We have been extremely honoured to be asked to distribute Abel reels in the UK. Part of  the signing off process was to visit the factory and meet the guys in person. The really cool thing is that first of all they were a great bunch and we all hit it off really well but secondly they are all hard core fishermen. This means the guys who are building the product know and understand what they are building and actually use it out there; be it on the flats or on a trout stream. Any little tweeks that might be needed are understood from both an engineering perspective and more importantly from a fisherman’s view too!

They are fiercely proud of their product and it was wonderful to see everything is built in the factory even down to the screws and pawls, nothing is outsourced. This means no corners are cut as they build exactly what they want and need and to the exact specification. Like Scott, everything is built in the USA by fly fly fishermen for fly fishermen so you know you will be getting a product that has spent hours out on the water with a lot of knowledge and know-how behind it. 

On the 28th April at the annual dinner at the IGFA museum Abel are to be recognised as the world’s leading reel manufacturer. High praise indeed and well deserved. This speaks volumes about the quality and durability of their reels!

We finished the tour and meeting and it was really nice to pop down to a local bar for a quick drink before the flight home.

Abel are famous for their anodised reels and you can really go to town and have a custom pattern for just about every occassion. Your local Abel dealer will have a selection for you to have a drool over! We have some exciting plans for these reels in the UK.

It was a real pleasure to meet the guys and to see a company that puts quality, passion and pride into the product they are making…here’s to you guys!

 I had an email from Jim who has just popped his Permit cherry…good work fella!, hopefully I’ll be getting a crack in December!

Next week is a really busy one for the school, I’ll be busy guiding and Mark is on our lake with plenty of newcomers including a couple of ladies. Looks like my new camera is going to be busy…shame about the operator of it!!

I have taken the day off today as it is my birthday. On days like these it is a perfect for a little spot of fishing. Emma and Charlie joined me and we headed to the Teign for a couple of hours of fishing and then lunch in the pub by the river. The other reason was that I was lucky enough to recieve a new bamboo rod as a present. This one is made by Luke Bannister down in Cornwall. Luke is a great guy and fellow fishing bum. We met last year and found we both had a love of bamboo rods. The difference is that Luke is pretty dam good at building them! I went for a 7ft 3 wt which fits the bill perfectly for fishing here and the space in the bamboo rod line up. I strung the rod up with a standard SA 3wt WF line and it really sings.

The water was low and clear so I stuck with the usual set up of klinkie and small tungsten bead head and managed a few fish. Nothing of real note but nice all the same. The girls took our dog, Enzo, for a stroll and we met up and had lunch and got back before the weather broke.

The rod is awesome and managed everything with ease even when a downstreamer picked up. I think it will be perfect for up on the Moors too.

 Bob was teaching on the Tamar on Tues and his client did a bit of fishing at the end and had a good pull and they saw a salmon roll. Sounds like there might be a few tourists in town.

I am off for a few days to the U.S on business. Who says fly fishing isn’t glamorous?!!