Posts from — July 2006

My brother and I are no Paul Maclean’s. We won’t win any fishing competitions, certainly won’t win any casting competitions, and neither of us is likely to marry Jennifer Aniston any time this year. What we lack in those departments we do however make up for in the ‘bullheaded determination’ category. To this end we got up at 5am on Sunday morning to go and see what was happening down our favourite river.

A pal of mine mentioned to me a while back that during the hot summer months he’d had most success on his local rivers very early in the morning. At such times the water temperature is lowest, and coupled with a steadily increasing air temperature as the sun comes up this may lead to good fly activity. I used to fish for tench very early in the morning, but what about trout?

We arrived expectantly awaiting a kettle of feeding fish, but of course we found a rather different river. Just the occasional gloop broke the smooth surfaces of the glides, and the bubbling runs busily chatted away to each other, the trout eavesdropping somewhere else.

I tried casting to a couple fish I saw rise, but after cycling from a DHE to a Shipman’s it looked rather like the fish couldn’t really be bothered. So we both switched to nymphs, vague haresy jobbies with black or gold noggins. I set things up with a little tuft of sheeps wool a couple of feet from the fly, perfectly happy that I was going to disown myself later for this terrible act of heresy. About 500 false strikes later I was ready for a DHS again. A size 18 brought a handful of takes, but it was obvious that things weren’t really happening. I began to wonder whether some rivers are naturally better ‘evening’ or ‘morning’ streams. Perhaps their orientation to the sun (as in directly upstream/downstream) has an effect. Certainly this matters to fishermen..!

This cracker took a size 8 Royal Wulff. At one stage, as the backing knot wizzed ever closer, I felt a pang of doubt over my abilities as an angler.

Further upstream I caught a couple of pretty trout to the DHE, fished with almost only the leader on the water. The more we fish here the more we realise this is the way. Charles Jardine had an article in FF&FT a couple of months ago about this. It’s got to be the best way to fish fast pockety water.

We had breakfast at about 1pm. Madcap dedication I say, considering we hadn’t really caught very well. But it was a lovely morning, a wee breeze and some flittering clouds adding to the yellow sunshine. A few sedges milled around landing on us and generally looking sleepy.

This chap caught my eye with his tigery patterns. John Goddard tells me he’s a brown silverhorn sedge, and is very common on streamy rivers.

Afternoon and nap time. Nothing like a kip on the river bank, especially after a couple of hours sleep the night before followed by 7 hours straight fishing.

About 4pm we stirred and thought about heading back to town for our evening arrangements. Wondering down the river we noticed that the breeze had strengthened and there were rain clouds on the horizon. What followed was totally unexpected.

A hatch. A big hatch. Of blue-winged olives.

It was fantastic to see little explosions in the riffles as trout broke the surface. Careful weighing up of the maths and we decided that the following formula had been applied by the trout:

Big BWO hatch + howling gale = loadsa flies on the water

We furthered this with:

Loadsa flies on the water + loadsa trout = a cracking rise

Which turned out to be spot on. Only it took me a short lifetime to realise exactly what was happening. First I managed to go through about 7 fly changes, from red-tags to bibios to double badgers, with thoughts of a terrestrial fall. The fish, however, were definitely experiencing some tunnel vision.

Finally I began to wise up and put on my never-fail CDC F-fly in a size 16, and started hooking fish. It was odd, it almost seemed like they were so clued into the duns that even the standard emergers were being ignored. I’m sure this had something to do with the strong wind, and slightly inclement conditions. This meant that the duns were really struggling to get airborne, so that many more ended up on the water than usual. Fascinating stuff I thought, and very exciting to be a part of. Next time I’ll try not to be caught so unawares. I suppose you don’t expect such good surface activity in the middle of the dog days.

As my brother pointed out, our takes-to-hookups-to-landings ratio was totally horrendous. I had so many fish splash at the fly, with my bullet-strikes failing to connect. I hooked quite a few despite this, but lost all before ‘proper’ release was possible. I was a little frustrated by this, especially as we had to leave while BWOs were still stumbling around on the water. But in hindsight, it was just great to be in a proper hatch again, and casting to rising fish with at least a vague idea of where the fly was.

It was amazing to witness how a really difficult fishing situation can suddenly become almost ‘easy’. A writer called Bob Wyatt (the guy whose fly patterns I usually use) wrote an article about this very thing in last months FF&FT, and to me it just makes more and more sense the longer I’m a fly fisherman. If there’s food, there’re fish. If there’s no food, use a wooly bugger.

Things have been hot recently. Weather wise I should add. It seems there’s been continuous sunshine for weeks and all my regular rivers are looking thin and summer silky.

I managed to fish three days in a row this weekend, down on my favourite bit of water. We spread things out so no water was fished more than once. Turned out to be a fascinating run of fishing. I think it highlighted some important things to me, which I may have ‘known’ already but are best learnt with real experience.

First night it was hot, with a little breeze to start with. We headed to a bit of river we haven’t fished before, but were dissapointed to find it was poor fly water. Actually it was more reminiscent of a narrow loch, the surface rippled in the wind. Not the nice streamy pocket water we usually fish. The water temperature was just about right for simmering bulgar wheat, so we walked and walked in search of riffly water. I felt smug that my decision to wet-wade was not going to be regretted.

Eventually came to a cracking pool, with dozens of channels between streamer weed and rocks. I waited whilst the brother fished the nice bits. As he was flicking the fly line out of the rod tip, the fly (a standard DHS, superbly tied once again) landed a couple of rod lengths ahead in some slow flowing water. A nice fish slashed at it and a Class A Bullet Strike followed, sending him packing to his bolt hole.

I ambled upstream finding more dead water and some enthusiastic parr feading on floating fag ends and anything else on the surface. It wasn’t until the sun was well gone, maybe 10.15, when I noticed some nice fish moving in a pool just downstream. I crept up and watched. There were mini-submarines in that pool. Big swirling wakes were all I saw of the fish as they supped down sedges and BWO spinners. One fish was well over 2lb judging by the water displacement, the other at least 2lb. Casting to them was just about impossible due to wading issues and sh!te casting ability on my part. So I accepted as much and enjoyed the knowledge that I’d found some whoppers.

These photos are of a BWO male spinner. As far as I know they don’t feature much in an evening rise, as it’s the females that lay eggs and die on the water. I think sherry spinners are much more vividly orange as well.

Next day and some serious fly tying took up a good bit of the day. I think I’ve cracked those DHEs. Seem to turn out well every time now. I tied a few with a bit of fluff to suggest a shuck. Not sure if that makes sod-all difference but I felt slightly intelligent doing so.

The weather was a little more cloudy this evening, and very humid. We were fishing at the bottom end of our more usual beat, again an area we haven’t fished much. A couple fish rose lazily, and I felt chuffed to catch a nice one of around 10oz to the DHE above. The brother had a few throughout the evening, to the DHS.

Something we both noticed was that drag was even more of an issue than normal, and it’s normally difficult to control. We reckoned the low water was making things worse, as the surface of the pools and flats we fished was always very ’swirly’ if you catch my drift. Of course all rivers are swirly, but this was noticibly difficult. I thought about things for a very long time and came up with an amazing formula:

warm water + crap casting + bad drag = difficult

Next night I opted for a longer leader than usual, probably around 15′, with oodles of limp tippet (if you know what I mean). This definitely helped the drag issues (of course), but my hyper-crap casting made controlling where the fly went interesting. This was worst when casting only a couple of feet of fly line, fishing pocket water at close range.

Interestingly I caught a grayling, which seem quite rare where I fish. I see Ali had a similar experience the other night. Total fluke on my part, I was just beginning to drag the size 12 DHS across the water to cast again. Late on the fish really started to show, taking some of the BWO spinners that had returned. Definitely some caenis feeding going on as well. And some sedge feeding fish, so all in all quite good given the tepid water.

So fishing three days in a row at this time of year taught me a lot. The importance of timing of course. At no stage was it really worth fishing before 9pm. Peak of any rising was 10-11pm. Spinner feeding fish are a damned arse to cast to when you’re fishing a long leader and can’t see a thing. Caenis feeding fish take the piss. Give me a sedge feeder any day, please. At least until my casting gets better (it will I hope).

And each night it was quite different. First night some rises, very late on. Second night not much, despite apparently better conditions. Third night the best by a mile, as there were more flies on the water. Just shows how much you miss out on by fishing only once a week. Solution: fish every day.

If there are any folks reading that have never been to Scotland, or who know little about fishing in this lovely country, perhaps this post will give a wee suggestion of why I love it here so much.

On Saterday afternoon the weekend’s fishing took a turn for the hills. We were to head up a remote burn (that’s a small stream for anyone not from around here) and to a tiny wee lochan to fish for wild brownies.

This fellow had the cheek to ask for a permit. I gave him a superbly tied DHS and that seemed to bribe him enough.

Taking our time in the blazing heat of early afternoon we stopped off for ice cream and a visit to the nearest chippy. This would prove to be a sly move due to some ration issues later on. An hour or so later and we were leaving the car and heading up the burn. Occasional drifts of cloud were welcome relief for us and maybe the fish too.

My my this was a cracking little place. Places really, because everywhere you looked there was just great fishy fly water. We knew the fish would be small, but that was part of the joy. Brother was first tackled up and fishing a stunning wee plunge pool.

Almost straight away a wee trutta dashed out and tried to grab the size 18 sedge I had tied up a few nights before. A couple more drifts and another take. An absolutely rediculous fight ensued with the fish convinced he was some kind of giant lightening bolt.

Managed to calm him down for about 3 seconds, just time for a snap and away he went. At this stage I was about as excited as I have been for a long long time. I know some may find that a little odd given the modest size of the quarry, but for me burns are where it’s at. Along with the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere and these fish had probably never been fished for it was just wonderful. It’s not a way I feel that often and I savoured the moment. Things just felt perfect.

I opted for the “I’m a real man” approach and stuck on a tiny wee nymph. Time for some busy upstream nymphing practice. This was absolutely fantastic fun. At times it was a challange with the fast turbulent water but quite often the fish took the fly very obviously just under the surface, so that you could see a clear flash of the take.

As the picture shows the water was clear and swift. Great water for getting really close to likely lies and fishing with almost only the leader out the rod tip. And for a change I found that almost every likely lie held a fish, who would almost always have a go at the fly. Typical upland fishing this, and simply fantastic fun.

For me there could be no better way to introduce someone, of any age, to fly fishing than taking them to a burn like this. I think it gives you a great insight into what it’s really about, for me anyway. No pellets, no bag limits, no tailless misery. And to be honest, it sets out right away that fishing is about more than expectations of big easy fish. True, the trout in burns like this are not difficult to catch, as long as you approach the fishing with a modicum of stealth and cast carefully. Many times all we saw when approaching a pool were little brown topedoes bolting for cover. That sort of visual lesson soon gets learnt.

Amazingly the fishing seemed to get better the further up the burn we went. Many places it was one stride wide, and in such cases it was usually very obvious where the fish would be lying. Again brother managed the best fish, an absolutely stunning fish than just gleamed brown and gold in the afternoon sun.

There really not much I find more satisfying in life and fishing than seeing a fish like that caught from a remote little burn. He was maybe half a pound, but the fight he gave was just insane. Take a gander at that tail fin!

After a good few hours working our way up we managed to pull ourselves away and strike on for the loch. We needed some dinner and to set up the tent, and I was feeling paranoid about a possible midgy attack. Unbelievably I hardly saw a single midge in the end, even in the flat calm that descended on the loch around 9pm. The gods were really grinning on us this weekend.

We took a short excursion to watch the sunset over a distant loch before returning to fish into darkness. No monsters caught this time but I know they are there.

If you’ve never been to my country let me tell you there are hundreds and thousands of wee lochans and burns full of feisty little trout. Sometimes you just fish and watch the landscape and think life can be wonderful. The fishing is only part of the experience, but together with the hills and clear highland air it can be really special.
There are also some places with feisty big trout, but I’ll save those for another time.

It’s been a pretty fishy weekend. There was a bit of an epic fishathon planned up in the highlands with several pals. Things didn’t start well as Ali was struck down with the lurgy. I suppose the trip could have happened anyway, but like Queen without Freddy, things just weren’t going to be the same. Hopefully that trip will happen another time (unlike the Fredster).

Lost without our planned fishing mission we pondered staying behind and fishing our local stretches. But we were in an itchy feet kind of mood and hastily hacked together a plan for an alternative trip. There were going to be burns, lochs and heavy backpacks involved and maybe even a fish for tea.

First though things started with a wee evening session down our local urban river on Friday. Weather was hot and bright and rather July like. Once again a good few fish were moving, but once again the rising was a little sporadic. I winkled out a few small fish and lost one maybe 3/4lb. Fishing the sedge sedge sedge as usual.
Brother managed better with two around 3/4lb and lost another larger one. There were plenty of BWO male spinners around at one stage which isn’t something I’ve really seen much of on this river. Needless to say there wasn’t a particularly noticable spinner fall.

Next morning we took our time packing everything we could find in the northern half of Glasgow into our backpacks. That I can tell you is an achievement because they like their concrete cinder blocks in these parts.

Down to a river in the south of Scotland it was we went. Amazingly we were still in a rush to get to the river despite an apparently incredibly large quantity of time when we left home. This happens too often to me. Need to sort that out, though to be fair the ‘directions’ given by the ticket required a bit of Crystal Maze style mind juggling to work out.

Fishing was ok, though not great. The weather was again hot and bright. The fish got quite excited around half nine, but I couldn’t work out exactly what they were taking. Something small and just under the surface I think, possibly caenis.

Like most Scottish rivers (outside the NW highlands) there are usually some sea trout present at this time of year, so when it got dark I had a go swinging some big, dark flies through some pool tails.

This is a wooly bugger by the way. I love this fly. What a great name. I’ve never caught any trout with it, but then I’ve not fished it much. It tends to work its way onto my cast towards the end of a quiet fishing day when a certain despondancy moves in. I know this is not a fair way to fish such a successful fly. A pal of mine would tell me to fish it stripped past sunken trees, and he’d be right (he is about many fishing things I find).

Nothing showing, probably the lowish water or my crapness. One day I plan to give sea trouting a proper go. I’ve even got a book, so I must be serious. There’s also a plan to visit the moon, which is probably marginally less likely than me becoming good at this any time soon.

Still there was enough evidence of fish to make us want to come back, which I plan to do early next season. Hopefully there’ll be some March Browns milling around at that time, and maybe some proper sized olives..!

Dinner that night was noodles. Exciting stuff.

Here’s a contribution to the fishing diary from my brother.

Yesterday was a day of savage wind, which finally dropped at around7:30.  I was on the river by just gone 8, fishing a well-known stretchbut some less well-known pools.

In about two hours of fishing, six trout were landed from the 6-7 inchrange to a couple of half pounders, including this one:

It fell to a size 14 sedge.  I had seen the fish rise once at the headof a riffle-pool and took it on the first cast.  Really good fighter.That’s what I have noticed about the fish in this part of the river thisseason, all have fought hard and swam off with healthy power on release.Not surprising when you see the size of the tail fin.  It looks like abeavers’, which explains the power with which such a trutta can swim andmaintain itself in a fast current.

Moved upstream, catching here and there.  Was a brief hatch whichturned relatively sporadic rises into a kettle for a while, but for somereason a couple of larger fish would not be tempted by my flies.  Had to wadethrough a pool about 5 foot deep,  an experience made all the more spooky bythe encroaching blackness of the air.

Was a shame to lose a genuine big boy from a pool I’ve overlooked inthe past.  Lack of experience really, wasn’t sure how to play it once ithad run 40 feet downstream.  Guestimate towards 2lb, certainly 1 and a half.

All the fish fell to sedges.

I headed over to visit family in Glasgow this last weekend. Got there around half eight Friday evening and bolted straight out the door again, brother in tow, to get some fishing done. Still plenty light around at this time of year, though some dark clouds threatened us.

Actually it was the sort of evening I love. Moody with changing light, all very atmospheric. A nice rainbow (the kind we like on this river..!) promised us the fishing would be good.

Started down at a stretch I rather like after having something of a red-letter trip there last season. As ever the river provided us with some rising fish. On with the wee deer hair sedges and not long before the brother landed a pretty trutta.

Fish were in a strange mood this evening. Sometimes they splashed aggressively at the odd sedge, sometimes they barely broke the surface sipping something I couldn’t see. Needless to say I opted for the sedgey approach. Again I felt out of practice with wayward casts and general frustration. I also did my best to fall in for about the 5th time this season but somehow avoided doing so.

Fished late on and of course the fish were still moving a bit. At this time of year on this stretch you can get really close to the fish because the banks are high, provided it’s quite dark. Makes for exciting fishing with fish barely a rod tip away.

Had a couple fish to hand and a few more lost, so an enjoyable evening all round. Weather wasn’t really kind in fishing terms with the cool breeze. Given a balmy evening this stretch can be amazing with the fish nailing anything that looks like a sedge. I reckon I’ll try the old cork-fly later on this season.

Saterday was rather an off day weather wise, so we headed out on Sunday afternoon. Our fave wee tributary burns were out of action along with the main river so we went towards the source. Things didn’t look too promising when we got there with the river rather slow, brown and generally canal like. Hardly a lovely tumbling stream like some other stretches we know. After a good bit of laughter at our chances of catching we actually found a few fish starting to feed on a sparse hatch of small olives coming off around 4pm.

How expert does this fellow look?!

Brother fished a wee dirty duster (of my tying as usual) whilst I opted for a size 18 sedge-related offering. Very interesting actually watching the differences in the takes between these two flies. I’m pretty sure the fish were mostly taking the ascending olive nymphs just before emergence, and the dirty duster got takes almost the same as the normal rises. My sedge however received what I can only describe as ‘trout abuse’. I wonder if there’s such a thing as trout therepy because the aggression they showed was out of order.

Found this huge patch of nettles next to the river, just asking for an angler to take a stumble into them. This has happened to me a couple times before and caused mild stress…

On the way back I asked the some local cows if there were any hot flies for this stretch but they just grunted and kept on chewing. I’ve yet to meet a really good fly fishing cow, but you’d have thought that even the average ones had a favourite fly.

Now for part two of a few noodles on nymph fishing. I spent some more time reading Ollie Kite’s book and reckon I’m closer to crystalizing my thoughts a bit. The last post on this basically consisted of reasons why indicator fishing is dodgy. There are some genuine reasons that are pointed out in that web article I linked to, chief of which is that you actually miss quite a lot of takes because you’re so focused on only one bit of the line. To be a good nymph fisher I reckon one of the most important things is to be able to look everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The sign of the take could be so many things it seems a shame to limit yourself to robotic oogling of a float.
So, what makes proper nymph fishing different, and how is it done really well?

It’s a nymph party and you’re all invited..!

The absolute key to this is what Ollie describes as “informed anticipation”. If you cannot see the fish you are fishing to, as is almost always the case where I fish in the riffles of spate rivers, you must do the next best thing and that is to imagine the fish. Again this may sound pretentious/stupid or whatever, but having done this a bit I can honestly say it is absolutely central to becoming good at this. He puts it much better than I could:

“Try to anticipate the movement for striking by picturing in your mind not only what is going on beneath the water, whether you can see it or not, but by what you intend to cause to happen beneath the water.”

A really simple way of putting this into practice is suggested in that article where the author describes how he teaches people nymphing:

‘When I’m teaching short-line nymphing, I often tell the students, “Find a reason to set the hook sometime during this drift.” This helps them to intensify their concentration and to expect a strike instead of being surprised by a strike.’

Angry stonefly nymphs face each other off!

What I like so much about this way of fishing is that you are truly hunting the fish. Generally you don’t get away with the kind of lucky hookups that can come with swinging/winging wet flies, or even prospecting with dry flies. These are obviously great methods in their own right, but there’s just no way they require the same levels of skill and anticipation that come with good nymph fishing.

When you are really fishing a nymph properly I’ve never found anything else that so completely absorbs your concentration and tunes your senses. If you then actually catch a fish it’s a thrilling mix of “strewth I actually hooked one” and “how the hell did that happen” and “hmm I think I’m becomming a bit Buddhist”. A good couple of hours of fishing like this and I need a drink..!
I should point out that I realise it’s probably not kosher for a Buddhist to fish (afterlives etc etc), but hopefully it makes my point. Actually I bet a Tibetan monk could make a flipping brilliant nymph fisherman.

Even crappy nymphs like these work well. The Kitester would have been proud of that one on the top right

So what all of this is trying to say is that good nymphing comes from serious concentration, anticipation and quick reactions. Shedloads of practice helps as well.

“Maybe I should have fished a nymph…”

Since this is really a kind of personal fishing diary I intend to ocasionally use it to voice any fishy thoughts I happen to be mulling over. That’s what this post is going to be like, so sorry if this is boring.

I had a really good chat with a pal of mine a few weeks ago. We talked nymphing. Of the dead drifted upstream shabang. Truth be told I quite often talk about this with the guy because he’s kind of a guru I reckon and I need to learn. I’ve been spending a bit of time this year practising this dark art and I feel I’ve just about done enough of it to have some ‘proper’ thoughts. This doesn’t mean I’m any good, actually it means I know I’m not. It’s just a case of trying to learn by listening closely to oneself’s own bullshit.

There are nymphs in there!

It’s a funny old business nymphing upstream you know. Unquestionably the most difficult of all river fly fishing skills, you basically just fish a dry fly with your eyes closed. Ok so that’s slightly exagerating the point, but not by much. What makes it truly testing and what is at the heart of the matter is that stuff also happens in 3D.

This guy is 3D, and he lives in 3D

Why is this important? Because to my mind almost everyone who fishes a nymph tries to find ways to avoid this fact, and to make life 2D. If you fish a great big indicator, it is a hell of a lot easier to start catching a few fish on the nymph. However, there is no way that you are becomming a really good nymph fisher this way. There’s essentially not much difference between this and fishing a dry: in fact that’s what it is, a way for dry fly people to fish a nymph without learn how to properly.

Look, no indicators!!

Does this matter? Not at all. Fish as one wills, the fish dinnae care. But to me, there just seems something a little cheap and half arsed about skipping out on properly learning this obviously fascinating branch of fly fishing. And by properly I mean to *know* the take without a globug on your leader. This is the great bit, the bit that makes me excited and mad in one go. Ollie Kite was aparently amazing at this, and reading his book has been really good fun and just a bit inspiring. How is it possible? Well another good place to start is here, followed by a good while on a river. Why am I obsessed by this stuff? I reckon it’s because to be good at this kind of fishing takes a serious pinch of zen. I’m not really there yet, but I’ve tasted the jam and it’s good. Rasberry…mmm.. There’s just something amazing about fishing up through a nice riffle and suddenly there’s a nice trout on your line and you don’t know quite how it got attactched. But you do really. You’ve reached the zen plain.