I was guiding Jim yesterday. Jim is from just up the M5 and has fly fished rivers just a couple of times but has done a fair bit of stillwater stuff and wants to tackle rivers more seriously this year. We spent some time on river fly fishing casts and then it was off to put it into practice.
The day before had been glorious. We had our first barbie of the season at home (plenty already at Scott Fly fishing School HQ or as we now call it the Command Module!) and it felt pretty good to be working outside. Tomorrow is always another day but yesterday was infact a lot different. There was light rain, cloud and it was certainly a lot cooler.
The river though was pretty low and crystal clear but there was no sign of any hatch when we got into the river. The setup was the ever faithful black klinkie and a small nymph tied on NZ style. I set the dropper at a couple of feet and we kicked off. It was cool to see on the 2nd cast the dry dip under and a fish on. A small fish of about 5 inches but welcome none the less. We carried on upstream but things were quieter. We concentrated on the tails of pools and slightly slacker water as early season these tend to be good holding areas but as the season progresses and things warm up then it is the heads and faster runs of pools that I like to spend more time on. This strategy didn’t appear to work but a half hearted strike at the dry got me thinking that perhaps with the water low and clear that if we made it worthwhile for a fish to have a look at our dry then we might have a plan. I will usually use a size 16 or 18 klinkie but I tied on a 14, tied on lightweight shrimp hook, still black, and Jim threw it out. I wouldn’t say the fishing was electric but we did pretty well and caught more than our fair share (nicest fish of 9 inches) and the dry outfished the nymph easily when the textbook might say something else. There is something special about seeing a fish taking a fly off of the surface and encapsulates for me what fly fishing is all about- the art of deception. We ended up staying until after 7 as the fish really came on and as I said to Jim “do you want to leave biting fish?”!!
After yesterdays blog my copy of Total Flyfisher came through and the fish off between Mark and Jax is in there. It is a good read and very amusing.
I’m hoping the weather stays as it is today (fingers crossed) as I am teaching 11 year old Luke who sounds like he is a mad keen fly fisher in the making. We’ll be on our lake and hopefully the fish will be biting!
More settled weather and the rivers will be coming to life. Don’t forget we have a variety of private river beats of trout fishing throughout Devon and Cornwall that are lightly fished and are full of hungry wild trout. So if you fancy something a little different drop us a line but be quick, the diaries are getting full!!
