Saddleworth2
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 27 Jan 2014
- Messages
- 20,466
Some who follow my posts recently might get the impression that fly fishing is an easy way of catching bucket loads of trout. Well last Thursday certainly disproved that. I knew beforehand the forecast was poor but when I got to the loch it really was like we had stepped back to January, Stiff NE wind and around 5c.
All my winter gear on, boat set up, out I went....
Started with a fast glass and lures....nothing
fast glass and washing line.....nothing
straight line buzzers........nothing
saw a couple of fish moving so dries.........nothing
Di5 and booby/blobs.....nothing
buzzers under a bung.......nothing
had some soup to warm me up
midge tip and different lures.....nothing
by 2.00pm I hadn't had a touch and had seen one fish caught by the other 6 or 7 boats so it was fishing really really hard. I had already anchored and moved two or three times and it wasn't the weather for drifting as the wind had stiffened. I was certainly looking at a first blank of the season.
I decided to search the really deep water in the loch which goes down to around 40 feet. Anchored on the edge of the deeps, through out as long a line as I could and waited for my Di3 to take the flies down, a full minute before starting the retrieve. By now I had a yellow dancer on the point which is a famous go to lure in Scotland.
......nothing
One last cast before I jacked in for the day. Waited a full couple of minutes until the line was almost vertical under the boat and started a jerky twitched retrieve. If there was ever a lesson in never giving up and to fish as focused as you can irrespective of what has gone before this was it: when you are learning to fly fish one of the things that you are taught to do is hang the flies at the end of the retrieve. That basically means just let them dangle stationary in the water in case a fish has followed your fly back to the boat. Now I always try and do this but sometimes you get lazy and forget and just lift and cast out again. Not today though and as I carried out that last hang, the rod tip twitched once, twice. A fish was at the fly some ten feet down.
Now you are taught not to strike when this happens, just wait until the fish takes properly and the line locks up. However, 50% of the time at least when you get that twitch the line doesn't lock and the fish having pulled the fly's tail decides to try elsewhere. So quick decision to make, hit the fish or continue to hang, blank staring me in the face.
I hit it.
It turned out to be lovely naturalised rainbow, pushing 7lb, silver rays in its tail which was as big as my hand. It gave me more pleasure than catching a dozen stockies.
It must have been very deep in the water and attracted to the fly and followed it up to the surface. I was just lucky it was still 'mouthing' the fly when I lifted into it. I have a nice photo of the fish but its too large to post (MGB not lbs ;-) ).
Back it went and that was me finished for the day. Always end on a high.
All my winter gear on, boat set up, out I went....
Started with a fast glass and lures....nothing
fast glass and washing line.....nothing
straight line buzzers........nothing
saw a couple of fish moving so dries.........nothing
Di5 and booby/blobs.....nothing
buzzers under a bung.......nothing
had some soup to warm me up
midge tip and different lures.....nothing
by 2.00pm I hadn't had a touch and had seen one fish caught by the other 6 or 7 boats so it was fishing really really hard. I had already anchored and moved two or three times and it wasn't the weather for drifting as the wind had stiffened. I was certainly looking at a first blank of the season.
I decided to search the really deep water in the loch which goes down to around 40 feet. Anchored on the edge of the deeps, through out as long a line as I could and waited for my Di3 to take the flies down, a full minute before starting the retrieve. By now I had a yellow dancer on the point which is a famous go to lure in Scotland.
......nothing
One last cast before I jacked in for the day. Waited a full couple of minutes until the line was almost vertical under the boat and started a jerky twitched retrieve. If there was ever a lesson in never giving up and to fish as focused as you can irrespective of what has gone before this was it: when you are learning to fly fish one of the things that you are taught to do is hang the flies at the end of the retrieve. That basically means just let them dangle stationary in the water in case a fish has followed your fly back to the boat. Now I always try and do this but sometimes you get lazy and forget and just lift and cast out again. Not today though and as I carried out that last hang, the rod tip twitched once, twice. A fish was at the fly some ten feet down.
Now you are taught not to strike when this happens, just wait until the fish takes properly and the line locks up. However, 50% of the time at least when you get that twitch the line doesn't lock and the fish having pulled the fly's tail decides to try elsewhere. So quick decision to make, hit the fish or continue to hang, blank staring me in the face.
I hit it.
It turned out to be lovely naturalised rainbow, pushing 7lb, silver rays in its tail which was as big as my hand. It gave me more pleasure than catching a dozen stockies.
It must have been very deep in the water and attracted to the fly and followed it up to the surface. I was just lucky it was still 'mouthing' the fly when I lifted into it. I have a nice photo of the fish but its too large to post (MGB not lbs ;-) ).
Back it went and that was me finished for the day. Always end on a high.
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