We had a meeting this morning and I then shot up to the Bray to look for my camera but no signs of it and so I have ordered a new one which will no doubt mean that the original one will turn up!

I have been sitting here writing this and have just recieved a really exciting call from Bob. He was doing some tuition on the Tamar and he decided it was time for his client to put it into practice. It sounds like a salmon thought it was a good job too as a 9lb bar of silver was released. Great news! Lets hope it is the same for the up coming salmon fishing course as we have a full house the weekend after next!

I had the pleasure of guiding Gavin on Saturday on the Bray. He has done a fair bit on the chalkstreams but only a little bit down here and so with a river in good shape and pretty good weather we set off. We started at the bottom of the beat and although we rose a few fish we noticed a lot were refusing or following the fly without taking. We decided to hop out and move upstream a bit where the water moves through a little quicker and the fish didn’t have so long to think about whether to hit the fly or not. This seemed to work pretty well and Gavin was soon getting into fish. He realised that the fish take a whole lot quicker down here than those on the chalkstreams but as is often the case once you have hooked and landed one you never look back!

Gavin was also keen to learn some watercraft and where and how to locate likely areas. After talking him through a few pools I asked him to talk me through how he would fish the next pool and he did so and it was an A* moment! We also looked at rise forms and how to interpret them and select your fly accordingly.

He fished like a star and had some nice fish in the 10,11 and 12 inch range and even hooked and played a sea trout for a few moments but sadly came off. It was really exciting to see it leave its hidey hole and come out and hit us!

The downside is that I had some nice photos of Gavin but sadly I seem to have lost or misplaced my camera that was given to me as a birthday present just a few weeks ago. Jax thinks I have had a senior moment for which I have thanked her greatly! I only realised when Bob took Tony and his 3 friends for some two handed casting yesterday and I asked him to take some photos…nightmare!

I was teaching Colin and David today and managed to dig out an old camera so normal service is resumed.

 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!

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 fishing for 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!

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!During the day there was an excellent rise to caddis- in fact the fly of the day was an emerging caddis of Pete’s that caught the whole afternoon. However, on looking in my box, Pete was quite taken with some of the caddis that I’d tied. He hadn’t seen one like it before; I’m sure there’s any number of people that have tied it, written it up and claimed it as their own, but I’d just developed it myself as a solution to my own fly-tying inadequacy.

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 learning to fly fish 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!

Alan has also made a return to fly fishing after a break but under Marks expert guidance he was casting a beautiful line in no time!

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?!

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!

 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!