Pete's Weighty ( Fly Fishing ) Words

The rain hit us pretty hard last night when we were having dinner and we had showers through the night. Being low down the system we were prepared for a change in height and clarity as the day went on.

When we got to the river though it wasn’t it too bad a shape and I had a nice short beat to myself. It gave me the chance to play a little with angles,flies and depths. I mixed flies, changed poly leaders and approached the run from a few different angles. sadly nothing connected but it wasn’t through trying and I really, really enjoyed myself. We all met up at lunch and I saw my first few moving fish of the day. This always fires you up a bit and Micheal and I were a little late for lunch as it was rude to leave the fish. I managed a good pull from one but that was it.

As the day went on the water crept up in height and carried more colour so the others got their spinning rods out. Liz managed a grilse of 4lb and had a good fish come off close in. I stuck with the fly and managed another pull but that was it. We finished a little earlier and will talk through tactics for tomorrow but sounds like weather will be OK.

As ever I am never worried about numbers of fish and enjoy the whole experience (not trying to paint a brighter picture…honest!) but the think that bothers me the most is the way I eased into eating a 3 course dinner every evening and a large fried breakfast every morning!

I got up to Aberdeen on Sunday lunchtime and Michael and I met up with my good pal Stuart for a bit of stillwater trout fishing . Stuart had sniffed out Dalgety trout fishery and we had a great time catching some really nice rainbows on dries and I was lucky enough to seem him christen his new rod!

Monday saw us on the river chasing salmon. There wasn’t a great deal going on as we started but as ever I take my barometer watch on this annual trip and it is really nice when you see it tick up while you are sitting watching one of the others fishing and shout out it has popped up a bit and lo and behold Gilbert hooked something. I was taking a breather so popped down to offer Gilbert a helping hand should he need it and just shout a bit of encouragement. He doesn’t really need it as he has caught more salmon on this fishery than most of us have had hot dinners but it is always nice to see the first fish of the trip come in. It fought hard and deep and it was a case of sitting out to a degree which is what he did and it swam off strongly when we popped it back. Michael also had a 6lber so things are starting to happen. As for me, I had a pull and a fish roll at a fly but that was it. I felt like I had covered the water and had mixed my flies so feel I couldn’t have done much more so I am pretty happy. I have a shortish beat to myself tomorrow so will give it a good go….we’ll see. Gilberts fish below…

I’m off tomorrow to go chase salmon in Scotland for a week. It would be cool if we get into some fish and hope weather is a little better than last year though. We lost three days to rain but the fish were really biting when the river got in a fishable state and if reports are to be believed the river is packed with fish right now. I plan on taking my laptop and will try and do a daily fishing report with a few photos as well.

 It means HQ will be in Mark’s capable hands as Bob is off to Denver for the tackle show to meet up with Scott, Abel, Nautilus and Clear Creek for starters!. This is probably the world’s largest event and will be where a lot of the companies will unveil new products for the 2009 season. I am sure, no, I hope, he’ll come back with some goodies for us!  Most of the movers and shakers from the tackle industry will be there and I know a lot of the big players in the UK market are heading out to take a look too. I am sure the evenings are going to be a quiet affair!!

My trip starts up in a very civilised manner when I meet up with my pal Stuart for a bit of stillwater trout fishing. We started the tradition last year and visited Mike Barrios’ excellent fishery but apparently he is fully booked so we are heading off somewhere new. Stuart is an excellent fly tyer and as I will not be taking trout gear it means I can “borrow” a few of his patterns…please remind me to give them back as the memory isn’t what it used to be!!

 I’ll report back Monday!

There is a small brook close to where I live that gives me a really good indicator as to how the Taw will be looking. I was off teaching yesterday morning and I had to pass over it. It was a raging torrent. It was the same when I went off to do an afternoon casting session. Yesterday was a ladies day. I spent the morning helping Kirsty and Helen touch up on their fly casting and we did some double hauling too. They are off bassing on Saturday and wanted to get a bit more distance. Kirsty kept us laughing with the little dance she did when getting the rhythm of hauling.

The afternoon I met up with Madeleine who is learning to spey cast. She is off to Scotland next week chasing salmon for the first time. She starts at university shortly and is a smart cookie. She quickly picked up the concept of why and when we use the different spey casts and I was soon quizing her as to what cast she might use given what bank she was on and what direction the wind is blowing in. “So, we’re on the left bank with an upstream wind what cast would you use?” straight away “single spey, right hand up…or a snap T or C!” It was seriously impressive!

Anyway, I passed over the brook on my way to taking Charlie to school. She was happy to be driven in as I had to go to Exeter to see Vodafone about my mobile. I got this new phone in April and the battery life is shocking. I don’t really use any of the applications and I get 3 days of use out of it and I turn it off at night. Now, the thing that gets me is that when I chose the phone I went for the one with the longest battery life. This one was quoted as 540 hours. Seemed perfect at the time. It has been back once and they have given me a new battery. Today I was told that although these hours are quoted the real life is infact 2 to 3 days. Apparently it is something to do with the new batteries they use. I took her over to where they displayed my model and showed her 540 hours. “well that is at optimal setting, with no phone calls and perfect signal”!

Getting back to fishing, we passed over the brook and it didn’t look too bad. Not stunning but almost fishable. When I got back I had a quick lunch and decided to have a look at the Taw. I only live a few minutes away and usually get into my waders and drive down but I didn’t fancy my chances too much but on parking, jumping out of the truck and peering over the bridge it would give me a better idea. The river was up and carrying some colour but was just about fishable. As I was there it was rude not to.

I threw on the ever present scruffy klink and stepped in. The river was carrying some colour and was up 8 to 10 inches. Throwing a fly into the main current would have been pointless so it was a case of getting into any slacker, shallower areas to see if anyone was at home. It was the case and I managed a few, nothing of any size but it was great to fish when I thought I wouldn’t be. I saw a couple of kingfishers and was a little saddened to see the first signs of trees starting to shed their leaves. For me this means that the end of the season is nearing.

One thing I have noticed this season is how often I have used just a dry when guiding and fishing myself. The last few seasons I have confidently tied on a nymph below the dry and have felt I was fishing the nymph more of the time on this set up but this year the dry has done a great job and lets face it there isn’t much more of an exciting site than seeing a fish dart from his lie to hit your fly!

Having just mentioned that autumn is on its way it was nice to see this months Total Flyfisher and an article our good friend Tim wrote about a trip we all made up to Colliford earlier in the year. It was a great afternoon/evening and I remember Mark trying to drag me off of the water when it was dark but as ever I just can’t leave rising fish!

Rivers are shot and so guiding has had to be postponed so Mark and I did some work on our lake. We have had a touch of broad leaf in there and the first signs of Canadian pondweed getting a hold so we thought we would do a little bit about it. Now, I hope you don’t expect us to do any thing remotely normal or by the book and I am pleased to inform you that this wasn’t the case!

We thought we would try to harness the super human strength that both of us pocess and keep our carbon footprint as small as possible.  We gave it some thought and decided that the best method would be to use one of our 2 man kayaks with Mark at the back and me at the front with a scythe! I had Mark constantly chirping on at me about being either Old Father Time, or worse still, the Grim Reaper. I found the best way was to sit with my legs over the side and work the scythe as close to the bottom of the lake as possible one handed which I think made Mark’s life rather difficult to control our kayak. I would have thought it looked rather comical to see me shouting ”left a bit, NO left” as Mark rolled his eyes trying to control quite an unstable platform. We managed to stay dry but I am not sure what the fish must have made of it!  We were really pleased with how it looks and rewarded ourselves with a quick casting session. 

I had a go with the scythe on the bankside vegetation too as we have a group of 12 coming up the weekend after next and I wanted to cut a  few more casting spots. It’s a lot easier on dry land! We felt very pleased with ourselves and quickly hugged a tree and felt very green!

Mark had Jim down for some fly casting tuition on Weds and it looked like he was hitting some seriously nice loops and I think Mark has infected him with the world of casting!   I am hoping to be doing some guided river fly fishing with him next week too….please stop raining!

I got a mail from Jo who seems to be nailing salmon on the Exe this year and I spoke to my friend Michael the other night who used to live right on the Torridge. The guy who bought his house is a dead keen salmon fisherman and hadn’t touched one all season until last Saturday where he had 5 and lost one he reckoned was in the high teens. It is really nice when all those hours of hard work pay off.

Below Jim Evans on Weds.

I’ve been away at the weekend. My daughter Charlie and I went and saw R.E.M at Twickenham. When we got there I wanted to show her that the old man has still got it so we headed right down the front and managed to get four rows from the front in what I believe is called the mosh pit. We had a great view of the support bands and as I looked around it appeared that there wasn’t a whole lot of people around. Twickenham is a huge venue and it looked like the headliners wouldn’t be playing to a full house. Needless to say this wasn’t the case and when R.E.M took to the stage the atmosphere was unbelieveable! They really know how to put on a show and we had a great time!

I know this doesn’t have much to do with fishing but bear with me. We took the train from Wimbledon to Twickenham and we passed over the river Wandle. I’m sure many of you know about the Wandle but in case you don’t it runs for 9 miles from the Croydon area to Wandsworth where it joins the Thames. Until the end of the 19th century it was considered one of the finest chalkstreams but with London ever expanding the river was used more and more as a dumping ground. The last recorded trout was caught in 1936 and the river was considered a sewer in the 1960’s.

In 2000 the Jet Set club was formed and the cleanup operation began with monthly cleanups which has continued and has gradually started to bring the river back to life. The work they have done is amazing and fish are starting to come back and have been caught. They have also gone into local schools and shown pupils what they are doing and what is living in their local river. As I mentioned we passed over the river and it looked it really nice and fishy. Just one day I might get up and have a good close look….

 Mark was busy looking after Joergen, Nick and Robin who were new to fly fishing. They learnt how to cast on Saturday and did some fishing on the lake and then headed off to the river on Sunday. A special mention to Graham a ,member of our team, who came down to help Mark all the way from Hertfordshire. You might think this was a selfless act of kindness, I did, until I found he was off fishing on Monday!

We’ve a busy one this week so should have lots of photos of smiling anglers!

I was due to have another day with Max today on the Teign. I passed and the river looked just peachy. I quickly bought a dat ticket and waited to meet Max. Having swapped emails I knew how keen he was to wet a line again and when he was 15 minutes late I gave him a shout. It sadly turned out that he had a minor accident in Moretonhampstead and was frantically trying to sort things out so he could still go fishing. Sadly it wasn’t the case and we have arranged to meet up in the future.

This left me at a loose end and without a rod I decided to head home, grab a rod and pop into a stretch of the Crediton Club  waters that I hadn’t really fished before but had seen the past winter when helping do some club bank work. I say help, I managed to “break” the chainsaw three times!

There wasn’t much going on but I popped on a dry and threw it in to some likely looking holes and had a few fish. Things warmed up a bit and there was a mix of stuff hatching including a couple of late mayflies.

It turned out that the river fished well and I had a phone conversation with my  pal Alison who is getting the river fly fishing bug. I had a quick sandwich and arranged to meet her on another stretch of the club’s water to see if we could catch a few. As I mentioned she is new to the river and was looking to get her name on the score board. We had been out the other evening and despite her rising a few, none stuck; including something that hit really hard and was a really, really nice fish!

The great thing about the rivers down here is the variation…well, usually it is. I had left a river that was on fire and we had started on one that was the opposite! There was little by way of hatch and very little surface activity. This didn’t dampen our spirits and as ever we had a really good laugh. Having fished small stillwaters I was so impressed with the way she has got to grips with the different challenges moving water gives us including all the nasty holes I try and get her to get the fly in!

The 3pm caddis hatch I hoped for was more of a whimper than a roar and it didn’t really get the fish going. Despite everything Alison came up with the goods….excellent work and here’s to lots, lots more!

I have just got in from spending a day with Paul. It was a two parter as he wanted to work on some casting in preparation for his meet up with some bonefish a little later in the year and then we were to head off for some river fly fishing. He is doing himself proud and don’t tell him but I have a feeling he is going to slay them!

I noticed that when we were getting all of his rods and reels out that he also got out 3 white plastic place mats. It was only 9.30 and wasn’t time for lunch! It turned out that he uses them as “practice bonefish” so that when he is out doing the real thing on the flat he’ll have everything ready to launch his fly to the fish.

I know we cast to catch fish and a lot of the time casting is only used when we actually go fishing but a little amount of time spent practicing casting makes the fishing trip all that more easier and as a result even more enjoyable. Golfers go to the driving range to work on their swing perhaps we should open a casting range at HQ!

As the saying goes “practice makes perfect” and it was proven when Paul landed his yarn on his “bonefish” that had been carefully placed 75 feet away with alarming regularity!

We hit the river at 11.30 and straight away the fish were hitting the dry. Paul asked if we were going to stick with just a dry but with some good water still pushing through there was the chance of something a little special having a look at the hares ear I had tied to the bend of the dry. We picked up a few and moved up to the next pool. There was a nice slack area and Paul threw his flies into it. The dry dipped and Paul struck into a sea trout of about 1 1/2 pound that gave him quite a tussle. It was his first and a really nice moment. Soon after we watched a really fresh salmon of 6lb swim by our feet.

2.30 saw a really nice caddis hatch. We watched fish taking the emergers and seeing the size of them I asked Paul if he had ever caught fish on a size 20. “Nope” was the reply but it didn’t take long to put this right. Paul picked off fish after fish in what was a brief but heavy hatch that probably only lasted 20 minutes. Pick of the fish was an 11 incher but the fish were taking confidently and hard.

We carried on and although not as frantic the results were consistent. It was a great day and nice seeing Paul fish so well!

I met up with Max on Friday, he was looking for a few casting tips and some guided fly fishing too. As he was staying on the south side of Devon we though we would head up to Kennick for some casting and then up onto the Moors for some fishing.

We turned up at Kennick just as they were about to stock. It is great to see the quality of fish they are putting in there and I thought I recognised the landrover from Milemead Fishery. It is the guys we use for our little lake and no wonder Kennick is heaving at the moment with so many great conditioned fish being pulled out that are really giving anglers a pull.

There was a pretty strong wind and I was a little worried about what it would be like once we got up top. Having seen Max cast though I knew it was not going to be a worry as he had the line out going nicely and we talked through a few things and then headed off.

We got to Cherry Brook at 12 ish and decided on having a quick sandwich. We walked upstream a fair way and I found a nice place to start. Max had mentioned that he had fished the Moorland streams 4 or 5 times before but with limited success. He had been employing similar tactics as he had for when he fishes the Kennet and had been casting a longer line. On such a tiny stream this can be a little difficult to control accuracy and the longer line can spook fish too.

With a heavy downstream wind we had gone up a line weight on his new rod to load it at the short range we were going to fish and we also altered the cast a little with a very high stop and low delivery to cut through the wind. We ony had a few feet of line out at the most plus a 9 ft leader. With the breeze on the water it also gave us some extra cover.

Again we worked the tails of pools and slack areas in between rocks and you have probably guessed we used a scruffy klink! I usually opt for a size 20 but with a bit of chop on the water I went for a size 14. It didn’t take Max long to master this different approach and he was soon into fish. They were really hitting the fly hard and we had some pretty frantic sport. He had some nice fish in the 8 inch range that really fought their socks off. He was reading the pools really well and as we approached a nice looking spot I sat on a rock and watched. It didn’t start so well as Max missed a couple (he hardly missed a thing all day) we had a bit of a joke about him losing his touch then he sent a nice cast up into a sheltered area towards the head of the pool. The fly was swallowed and Max struck. I could see by the bend in his rod that he was in to a good fish and then I won’t repeat what we both shouted when the fish took to the air!

I safely netted the fish after it had tried every dirty trick in the book and 12 inches of Cherry Brook brown was sitting in my net. This was a stunner in every way, dark like most of the fish here but in the fittest of health and in his prime. A 12 inch fish is good on any of our streams but one from such a small little stream was a real trophy. Its moments like that which are really special and to see someone do so well in what was not the easiest of conditions is really pleasing. I am out with Max again next Thurs and hope that we can do half as well!

Dave has been trying to get on to do some river fly fishing with us again for a while but the rain just kept scuppering any plans. Thankfully he had put himself on standby at work (he has a boss that fishes) and a call from me Weds had him racing down to us for a fish on Thursday. Knowing how keen Dave is I headed off to meet him 15 minutes early as I thought there would be a fair chance of him being there rearing to go! Dave let me down badly…he was only 10 minutes early!

The river still had a push to it but was down and pretty clear. The tails of pools and slacker water were the areas where we concentrated landing the fly and despite Dave not having fished since we last me up he was throwing his flies into the target areas with ease. I’d love to say the fishing was hot from the moment we started but steady was a better description and the takes we had were a little  half-hearted. The night had been cool and it was just a case of things warming up a bit to really get the ball rolling. As the morning progressed this was the case and we started steadily picking up fish. I had been setting my watch by the caddis hatch we have been having at 2.30 but looks like the cooler start put this back by 1/2 hour and this really got things going. Again using the scruffy klink at the early stages of the hatch it really did the business.

Dave covered the areas really, really well and picked up some nice fish. As the hatch eased we moved off to another spot and things were a little quieter. We talked about using smaller flies and I tied on a size 20 (scruffy klink again I’m afraid)  and we picked up some more fish.

It’s times like this when the fishing is pretty good that you forget to look at your watch and it is a lot later than you think. As ever I urged him on for just one more as it is always nice to end on a fish which he duly obliged and we headed off.

We both didn’t count but Dave caught more than his fair share and did a great. Hope it was worth the wait fella!