well this sucks

A few flies

Just a few flies off the vice tonight.

Why Pink?

I am sure those of you crazy enough to venture in to the tundra recently (I most certainly was) had a few bright flies with you. All year I try to fish imitatively, well almost, with drab browns and olives being wrapped around hooks to give some suggestion of life. However when that thermometer plunges and my mind turns to winter grayling I break out the flash.

Anecdotally the evidence seems to be there, most of my grayling recently have fallen to the above pink grub and it could not be much brighter. The flash in the abdomen is enhanced by wrapping the semi translucent material over a layer of silver tinsel, the photo does not do the effect real justice so you will have to trust me. Most of my friends have been doing the same as well, luminous Czech nymphs, tinsel jigs, hot spot pheasant tails the list goes on. 

This got me thinking, are we catching more fish on bright flies because we are fishing mainly bright flies, or is there something more to this… my research seems to suggest there may be but I am not sure I understand it.

During the summer trout eyes detect light mainly using a pigment called rhodopsin and have low levels of a second pigment called porphyropsin. In the winter the ratios are flipped, the flip occurs due to changes in both temperature and shorter daylight hours. Interestingly it also occurs in salmon and seatrout as they prepare to enter freshwater again.

All well and good but what does it all mean Basil, well I am not sure. Porphyropsin absorbs light at a longer wavelength than rhodopsin, the highest sensitivity for rhodopsin is in the blue/green area and this shifts more solidly in to the green area. This also means that in the winter fish eyes should be more sensitive to red (and therefore pink) light and less to blue. Could this be the reason for the success of pink and hot orange flies in the winter? I don’t really know. All I can say for sure is for the next six weeks there will be a lot of pink on my leader.

Eyebrook Competition

Last weekend I did something I have never tried before, I fished a reservoir competition. My dad needed a boat partner and he scraped the bottom of the barrel and asked me to join him, me being a bloke who fishes a reservoir perhaps once a year and never really does very well. But we only bloody won it, luckily for us it was a bloody hards weekends fishing for the two day comp, I think the average for a PAIR of anglers was 1-2 fish per day. We only managed 2 on the first day and were put near the bottom of the table, we struggled for mosty of the day but then found a shoal of fish right at the death to get us on the board. The next day we went back to the same spot and managed to do well when others were struggling and managed to finish the day with 10 fish and won the competition by over 5lbs.

I must say here that I did not enjoy the fishing, our successful tactics were pulling lures on Di7 lines at a rate of knots, in my eyes fishing should not leave me exhausted at the end of the day, I would rather feel refreshed after my fishing thank you. In fact I now have bruises and a swollen hand from the weekend!

On the upside the prize was a weeks fishing holiday on the fantastic River Suir in Ireland, and that is some fishing I can get excited about! The pain was well worth the reward.

So if any of you comp guys out there want a boat partner with a 100% success rate in comps you know who to ask, can anyone say beginners luck?

Tackle Review – Airflo Streamtec Nantec 10ft 4/5#

Got this rod from Fishtec, they are a company that I get a lot of my gear from now. Partly because I know one of the guys that works there but mainly because I think the delivery is reasonable and the service is fast-
Airflo streamtec fly rods

After hearing  a lot of good reviews about the Airflo rods I decided that my next rod investment would be from their line. My two main river rods are both Grey's Streamflexes and I love them, however I am a student again now and could not afford to purchase a third, I needed a cheaper alternative and this rod seemed to fit the bill.

Description from Airflo: 

The natural evolution for Airflo's ever popular Streamtec range was the addition of Nano Technology into the blank, making it lighter, stronger and even more responsive than previously possible.
The Streamtec range of rods has a silky progressive action that works exceptionally well at short to mid range and due to the soft tip light tippets can be used without fear of being broken off. The 10' models are particularly useful for either Czech or French nymphing techniques. So if it’s a river or steam rod your after there’s something in the Streamtec Nantec range for you.

Features:

• Single leg chrome rings
• Lined stripper rings
• Custom reel seat
• Cordura Travel tube
• High grade cork handle

Description from me: 

First impressions of this rod were all positive, the cork is as good as that on some of my more expensive rods and the matt finish is seriously sexy, all in all a nice aesthetically pleasing rod.

I got a 10’ 4/5# mainly for fishing techniques such as the duo and Czech nymph styles on the river and this is where it has been tested the past few weekends. It will soon also get an outing on Eyebrook reservoir where it will be used as my dry fly rod if anything is up on the top.

On the river it handled itself quite nicely, it handled medium range casts with ease and has a nice medium/tip action which gives good confidence when bending in to the fish. Currently there is a 4 weight line on the rod which in my opinion is not ideal, once a good length was out it casts really well but at short range (which is most of my fishing) it is pretty unresponsive. I am sure upping the line weight to a 5 will sort this and one has been ordered so I will report back on this when it arrives.

My only complaints about the rod are that it is a little heavy after extended use, almost a whole ounce heavier than the Streamflex equivalent from Greys (4.2 vs. 3.3 oz) and the handle is a bit chunky although others may find this comfortable I am more familiar with a thinner grip.

For the price I think the rod is phenomenal to be honest, £110 makes it much cheaper than the Streamflex (£240). The nantec may be half the price but it is certainly not half the rod, it is attractive and really nice to cast, once I get a 5# line on I hope the short range casts will be as good as those longer. Definitely a good investment.

Taff Update

Had some good fishing this weekend, well all fishing is good but this weekend was pretty exceptional. Saturday was spent on the Wylye again and we had yet another fantastic day with a lot of fish caught, all that was missing was the encounter with the big fish again. The French leader method is truly deadly on these clear waters with the delicacy outshining the more traditional methods, bring on the grayling season!

Sunday is probably better explained with some pictures, fished with Nick and Terry and had some fantastic sport on the Taff, both in terms of quantity and quality it was an awesome weekend.


2lbs 5oz of Taff bruiser, Terry has some weird connection with the Taff fish, using a floppy 8' 3# rod he seems to seduce them in to the net without too much fuss. They are like putty in his hands. This fish was actually dropped from the net before the photograph but with a few magic words it swam back into his hands for the glory grip and grin.


The fish of a lifetime for Nick, 3lbs 15oz of monsterous brownie. From a spot we have fished dozens of times and caught dozens of fish from before, the panic in his face when this fish leapt clear of the water was comical, he muttered like a madman for the whole fight. Prayers and black magic saw it safely in the net and he was soon swimming away safely back to the depths.

Edit: Removed the picture as I realised it makes it pretty clear where exactly these fish were caught and these fish have enough poaching problems as it is.

Leaky waders were a small price to pay for this days fishing. My own chances at big fish were all blown but hey they will be there next time right? 

Olives in the evening

The weather may be ridiculous for the time of year but the fishing has been superb. The Taff has not really dropped to it's bones at all since spring and is regularly flushed with cool rain water . The extra water has not put off the summer hatches and the fish have plenty of water and are happy feeding in the areas normally too shallow in high summer.

Most of my fishing at this time of year is taking advantage of the late light, short sessions after work for the msot part. I normally aim to get on the river for 6pm, observe the pool until some decent risers are spotted and then methodically work through it quietly and slowly. Normally only fishing a single pool in the 3-4 hours of light, there are just that many fish in some of them! Obviously not telling which those are though ;-0

The results have been spectacular, I have now had 8 brown trout over the magic 2lb mark in August and have beaten my p.b. twice within them, the largest was a lovely 2.15, so nearly toppling my seasons target of a three pounder, but there is still time!

A few of these are truly memorable, and chief amongst them a beautiful 2.05 who had an awesome lie. The river is thick with ranunculus, at parts it is so lush it breaks the surface and fish feed in near impenetrable channels between the weedbeds and hide under it perfectly safe. This fish had chosen a smart lie, tight up (and I mean 3" tight) against a boulder strewn bank, about a foot depth of water, ranunculus beds made the drift a nightmare (impossible) and a bush overhung about 3 foot up from his spot. He sat there feeling smug and safe picking off BWO duns all evening and all my casts with a dry fly caught up on the weeds or in the bush and I could not get a drift, eventually I put him down. The next night I went back and I had been thinking about how to catch him, my 8'6'' 4# was on my back in the pack, my weapon of choice the 10' 3# with a 33ft French leader. He was still sat there perfectly happy rising away and I crept up to within 20 ft of him just the other side of the weed bed. An unweighted nymph was pitched on to the rocks in front of him and the long rod enabled me to hold the whole leader off the water eliminating the problem of the weedbeds. A flick of the wrist and the nymph plopped in to the river and he swirled, I tightened, fish on.

The long light rod may have been perfect for rising this fish it was not for playing him. Luckily as the water was shallow he erupted and splashed on the surface, I used this opportunity to run backwards and drag him over the weed. The rest of the fight was in deeper weed free water and was simply a case of keeping him off balance and using the length and suppleness of the rod to my advantage, soon he was netted.



I have also found myslef a lovely long deep glide which given a decent hatch is splattered with rising fish, most of these are grayling but if you are experienced you can pick out a decent trout rise from the multiple grayling. I have caught some memorable fish from this pool and most have been large, well over the pound mark. The largest of all of these is my new p.b. although the story of his capture is not that interesting, he was rising in the middle of slow deep water moving a lot of water so I knew he was a good fish. I cast, he took, the fight was nothing too special really, he was weighed and released. Even though he was much larger than the previous fish at 2.15 I am personally more proud of the thought and energy that went in to catching his clever smaller brethren.



Sorry for the quality but a self timer alone at night is a tricky thing to do and as the water was warm and slow I didnt want to keep him out for it too long.

Probably the best moment of all though was fishing with my Dad. After a year of constantly talking about how brilliant the fishing is down here he finally made the journey. I was a bit worried as I had phoned him multiple times a week for the past month telling him of big fish lost and landed (including an experience with a really seriously big fish that smashed me to pieces, tippet and soul). Dad is mainly a reservoir fisherman, it took me hours to beat the double haul distance cast out of him over the winter and get him concentrating on accuracy and presentation. I guided him as he fished up a stretch that I know holds a lot of good fish, the goal for the day was simple and probably optimistic "Dad want's his first ever 2lb river trout" I daren't tell him this would be made a lot harder by his strict in the pub by half 8 policy. We worked up these pools catching plenty of fish and my job was simply pointing out the likely lies and suggesting casts to minimise drag, he actually casts really well so this was enjoyable. Suddenly at the head of a pool I see a fish take a fly and bulge the water without splashing, immediately I knew it was a good one, he was not convinced as the rise looked smaller than the energetic small trout around but I was certain, careful rise in the shade in the prime spot, had to be a good fish. He covered it and it took first time and tore off downstream. It dived under ranunculus, jumped multiple times and took some long runs but Dad know's what he is doing, he has been fishing for longer than I have been alive and soon had it ready for the net. I moved down to net it and saw it was about the 18" mark making it close to 2.5 lbs as I stepped towards it his rod bounced back and the dry flew through the air, I stabbed with the net but nothing could be done the fish was lost. He was heart broken and I was left wishing I had been a bit quicker with the net.



Dad fishes up some good water and catches a good two dozen fish up to the pound mark, this photo was taken a few fish before the "one" hence he still has a smile on his face.

I honestly thought we were lucky to get a shot at a decent fish during the day and his chance of the 2lber was gone. However the very next pool up I saw a very welcome site. Most fish were feeding on the right hand bank where the majority of the current was, however a small split of flow was coming down our own bank and above us was the perfect spot. A channel of deep water, perhaps 8 inches wide cut down the bouldery bank (always good fish by a bouldery bank) and left a small gap between this and the weed bed. A stream of duns were hatching from the weeds and finding themselves trapped in this channel and every now and then a nose dimpled the surface and a dun disappeared. I was in two minds with this one; Dad is not used to short casts, I was certain this was a VERY big fish, I was sure it would be a one shot event and perhaps wrongly I wanted to catch it. Instead I did the decent thing, I pointed him out to Dad and talked about the cast that would be required. His line would have to land on the weed, the tippet would need plenty of slack and the fly would have to land on an area the size of a dinner plate. He was hesitant, in his mind a fish barely breaking the surface could not be big. I talked him in to making the cast anyway, he would just have trust his first born on this one. First cast too short, damn, luckily the fish was still rising. Second cast in the weedbed, double damn, more than luck now but still rising. Third cast was the charm, absolutely as I had described it too him and his fly simply disappeared, there was no rise, no splash, his fly simply was not there any more, luckily he struck.

There was not much resistance on the line and he immediately just let the line go slack and said to me "told you it was a tiddler" and he tried to shake it off!! I will never let him live that down, the fish had simply swam back at him and once it went past him slack was no longer his problem and it took off once more. Again he played it well and this time the water was deeper and slower so the fight that much simpler and he was in the net. We had only gone and bloody done it!! 2lbs and 12oz of Taff brownie were his reward for the perfect cast and trusting me, I bet he wont ever try to shake a fish off again!





Mission done and it was off to the pub, gin, beer, whisky and wine were all consumed in celebration and another successful Father, Son fishing trip was concluded.

Dan

SBS - CDC Dun

This pattern has been working a charm for me during the hatches of pale wateries and BWOs this season (especially the evening BWO hatch) so thought I would share it.

Material list

Hook: straight dry fly 14-18, here I use a size 16 Partridge SLD
Thread: anything thin and strong, here I use the FishOn ultimate tying thread, strongest I have ever used
Wings and thorax: Natural CDC, 4 square ended feathers
Abdomen: Olive Lakeland superfine dry fly dubbing
Tail: Coq De Leon

1. Obviously tie on the thread and then bind the tail, aim for about equalt to body length and keep it a bit spread to help with stability.



2. Match the tips of the 4 CDC featehrs and then bind on, leave enough room for binding down behind the eye, 2mm should do.



3. splay the feather tips with your thumb and then pull the top 2 feather butts forward in line with the hook shank. When the butts are on top of the tips use your thumb and forefinger to draw the tips back and up, repeat this until there are no trapped tip fibres. Now bind the butts very tightly to minimise the size (hence the need for strong thread).



4. Now bring the two remaining butts around either side of the thorax to hold the wings upwards, again bind very tightly.



5. Neaten the head and then take the thread back behind the thorax.



6. Dub the abdomen of the fly.



7. Tie off behind the wings and add a drop of varnish, you are now done.







Apologies for the poor pics and the incredibly dirty vice jaws, they have seen a lot of use lately :D

I hope I explained this properly, the winging technique is really simple once you get used to it and by changing theabdominal dubbing around you can cover most olive duns, you can also pull the wings down flush with the body and then fish it as a spinner without even changing fly.

Riff Raff on a chalkstream

Fly fishing in Enlgand and the southern chalkstreams are synonymous, the crystal clear waters spawned the elitist upstream only dry fly and nymph standards that many still hold, not me though. The majority of the chalkstreams are playgrounds for the rich and famous, memberships can cost tens of thousands and day tickets are well in to the hundreds for the more famous beats. Unfortunately this does not make them good, rich people tot up with the newest most expensive gear with the flies they are told they must have and cast at freshly stocked monstrosities which would surely take the hook alone. These people do not understand the true enjoyment behind fly fishing. It is not about filling your bag with big fish, there is no shame in blanking on a hard water, fishing for easy big fish is no fun, without the challenge where is the sense of achievement?

It is a real shame then that nearly all of the chalkstreams are now like this, the only true fishing left on them is for the wild grayling which manage to thrive despite these keepers best efforts and I happily spend many winter days trying to catch them after the Lords and Dukes have left the beats for the colder seasons. One of the few exceptions is the lovely river Wylye, the price is the same, way out of reach for a student like me but it has never (and hopefully will never) be stocked. The banks are also allowed to grow, mowing and weed cutting are left to a minimum and the result is a very special river, one of the last of the true chalkstreams in my opinion.

I was over the moon therefore when I had an email from Roger Fagan (his impressive blog) inviting me down for a day to fish it. They were letting the riff raff on one of the most exclusive pieces of river in the country, 11 miles of river are shared between 40 members and half of them apparently never fish it!!

I was too busy fishing to take many photos of the river unfortunately so the blog post may be a bit dull. I had been warned before we started that better fishing than myself had blanked on this river which can be incredibly hard, however there was a bit of colour in the water due to the recent rain and the fish were less spooky because of it. Working up the first beat I had plenty of fish, in fact far more than I could have hoped for. 40+ grayling and a dozen trout came to hand that morning. At one point I managed to hit a pod of large grayling and had half a dozen grayling over 12" in as many casts.







At one point I even had my first ever double hook up when two grayling attached themselves to my leader simultaneously, crazy fishing.

During this spell with the big grayling I hooked a 6" fish and was bringing it swiftly in when an enormous trout chased it to my feet where he turned and dirfted back under some weed. A few casts past the weed later and he hit my pheasant tail hard and tore off down river. A lifetime later and he was ready to net, he was atleast 2-3" longer than my 18" net and had tried every trick in the book to get under the bank and weed, finally just as he surfaced and I dipped the net the hook pulled, I had to laugh, I have now lost 2 enourmous fish in 24 hours gutted.

In the evening we decided to fish on one of the little carrier streams, I had my fill of nymphing in the morning and was stubborn only taking my dry flies to fish the little stream which averaged about 7' wide.



There were some large sedges about and I did not want to faff about changing and drying flies in the gloom so a Moser Balloon caddis was tied on and flicked upstream over and over again until it erupted. What followed was brilliant fun with half a dozen fish bought to hand over the space of an hour as they battled hard in the little stream, they really had to be bullied to keep them out of the weed!





It was a brilliant day and Roger has been kind enough to invite me back, is tomorrow okay mate?

Weekend on the Taff

Spent this weekend fishing with my good mate Nick on what I now consider to be my home waters of the Lower Taff. 

Saturday

On Saturday the water was still a bit high (a good foot over summer average, which is better than most rivers in the UK at the moment) so we hit the Rhondda which flows into the Taff at Pontypridd. As I had over indulged in Bourbon the night before we didn’t start until 3pm, but we had an awesome evening session. The fish were rising when we arrived and we noticed that Terry was already working his way up the pool so stopped for a chat, he told us of a monster that he put at over 4lbs in the stretch below us; apparently he had tried most of his dries over it and the fish would nose them, ignore them and then carry on rising to the pale wateries, dark olives and blue wings coming down in good numbers.

Nick and I decided we should rest that fish and go back for him in the evening and watched Terry fish for a few minutes. A phone call then had Terry leaving in a hurry as he had forgotten an appointment with his lady (he has his priorities all wrong) so Nick and I started to fish up through the stretch.

It was one of those days where there were so many naturals coming down that the fish wouldn’t move for a good imitation, instead I sized up from the 16’s and 18’s to a size 12 sun-fly. This big mouthful was enough to grab their attention and we were soon rising a lot of fish all in the 0.5-1 lb range, good fish for the tributary. I have no pics of the fish as I had left my camera so will keep this day’s write up short.

Our evening on the Rhondda was cut short when she proved that the river itself could be as contagious as the fishing, when the heavy rain comes here overflows open in to the river and after I was hit by a sanitary towel we took that as a cue to leave.

We finished the evening on a good dry fly pool on the Taff above Ponty and had a good evening catching a load more fish on the dries, spinners this time as the blue winged olives had come back as claret spinners and the fish were feeding heavily on them.

The dry flies I used on Saturday are real staples in my box and I will do a post on them soon, the sun-fly and jinglers in particular always seem to elicit a rise from a stubborn fish, although I haven’t tested them on a river apart from the Taff yet.

Sunday

I remembered the camera on Sunday so we can have a pic post to make up for the dire lack of pics from the previous day. There were far fewer fish rising on Sunday but we both managed to catch our first and last fish on the dry with a few in between when we reached a good dry fly pool, again the jingler and sun-fly producing the goods. The rest of the many fish landed were on jigs, mainly drab brown-olives or bright red tags depending on the depth and colour, murkier the water more blingy the fly. Again the size of average fish was staggering and must have been approaching ¾ of  a pound, this average was seriously helped by Nick landing the beast below.

Good weekend had by all on the Taff I think.

Dan